Pittcon 2019 Philadelphia: A Journal

Pittcon 2019 Philadelphia: A Journal

By Michael Dong, MWD Consulting

This was my 18th consecutive Pittcon, a journey I started in 2002 when I first offered HPLC short courses there. As they say, the rest was history as Pittcon became my annual pilgrimage from where I returned refreshed with enthusiasm for analytical chemistry.

Philadelphia. Philly is my favorite Pittcon venue. Not only is it a historic city in a serious urban revival with many touristy sights and restaurants, and it is also a mere 3-hour drive from my home in Connecticut. I took Amtrak this time for $47 each way to save gas, tolls, parking fees, and planet earth. I shuttled from the train station to my hotels (Aloft and Ritz Carlton), restaurants and around town on my feet or Uber.

Short Courses. My schedule was packed this year with 2.5 days of short courses, as well as many meetings, and symposia. The attendance for the HPLC 1 and 2 courses was on the low side though all were from pharmaceutical-related industries. The half-day course on “Drug Discovery and Development Processes” was a surprise hit with ~20 students. 

Exhibition. I devoted the entire Tuesday to the exhibition. I started my day at 7:30 am at Waters Breakfast meeting with Terry Kelly and Jeff Mazzeo speaking on their new thermo mechanical instruments and the BioAccord. I walked by most of 700+ exhibitors on that day, paying particular attention to new separation science products such as Shimadzu’s slim-line Nexera UHPLC series and Prep SFC, Thermo Scientific’s Orbitrap ID-X tribrid MS, Tosoh Bioscience LEN3 MALS detector, and Waters BioAccord. This information will be highlighted in my article for LCGC North America’s April issue. My soles were tired from 4 miles of walking though I was amply rewarded by meeting with many new friends and old colleagues.

CACA Networking Dinner Event. I walked two blocks to Joy Tsin Lau Tuesday afternoon in nearby Chinatown for the annual Chinese American Chromatography Association’s networking dinner attended by ~130 persons including industry professionals, professors, graduate students, media, and sponsors. This year’s attendance was slightly lower than usual due to conflicts with many other events. The 3-hour event featured a ten-course sumptuous banquet, four award presentations, a fun talk by Professor Daniel Armstrong on “quantifying your existence, fourteen short presentations by corporate sponsors, and self-introductions by several students (recruiters) as a finale. There appeared to be such a shortage of experienced analytical chemists this year that almost every recruiter mentioned their willingness to green card sponsorships.

Invited Symposium. I went early to the conference center Wednesday morning to chair an invited symposium on “implementation of UHPLC in pharmaceutical analysis.” Matt Lauber from Waters arrived first followed by Daniel Armstrong of U. Texas Arlington, Jennifer Rhea of Genentech, and Ken Broeckhoven of Vrjie Universitat of Brussel. The attendance hovered around 130, and I received many positive comments re the fine quality of the presentations.

LCGC advisory board meeting. I rushed over to Marriott Hotel to attend the LCGC North America board meeting hosted by Laura Bush and her two new editors John Chasse and Jerome Workman. About half of the board were there, and I was pleased to meet all of them including Ken B., Peter S., Dan A., John H., Jared A., Dwight S., Diedre C., Zachery B., Andre D., Ira K., Mary Ellen MN., and Ron M. The board is like a Who’s who in separation science.

Eateries. The Pennsylvania Conference Center was conveniently located right next to the Reading Terminal Market and Philadelphia Chinatown where one can get high-quality meals for under ten dollars.  The highlight of my trip was my Saturday dinner at Estia restaurant on Locust Street in where I sampled a pre-fixe menu for $35 consisting of a salad, an excellent pan-fried fish and a sumptuous Greek classical dessert (Baklava).

The attendance of Pittcon 2019 was estimated to be close to 13,000 with exhibition participants at 750+ vendors. Perhaps a far cry from the pre-internet hay days of 20,000+ attendance when all instrument vendors must introduce their new wares at Pittcon. In my opinion, the technical and short course programs have become stronger through the years in one of the best organized all rounded conference in laboratory science. 

As I returned home Thursday on Amtrak, I remained inspired and enthused re my chosen career in analytical chemistry while looking forward to many more Pittcons to come.

Michael Dong 3/27/19 in Norwalk, Connecticut