Texas Stars

In May, the International Symposium on Capillary Chromatography (ISCC) and the co-located GC×GC Symposium will be held for a second time in Fort Worth, Texas. We caught up with Sheriff (Chair) Daniel Armstrong for his thoughts on this year’s “Riva in Texas.”

Armstrong promises a strong and varied program, highlighting hot topics in the field: “I love the way that seemingly established, mature research areas come roaring back with new innovative approaches. GC was such an area: 10–15 years ago, GC×GC and new ionic liquid stationary phases moved it back to the forefront of analytical research. Now, it’s GC detectors that are all the rage, with a dedicated session at this year’s event.” Texas Titan Kevin Schug will give one such presentation on May 18 – and you’ll find us “Sitting Down With” him.

Applications for new multidimensional techniques in health, environmental and metabolomics areas will also feature heavily, says Armstrong. Indeed, cover feature author Jef Focant will chair “Health/Metabolomics II” on May 17. But the program won’t just focus on the hot topics of the moment. “Sample preparation is not a sexy topic, but it is tremendously important. Improvements in this area always have a big impact on chemical analysis – so we have devoted a session to it,” he says.

Talks to look out for include:

• Monday, May 15 – Carlo Bicchi on better approaches for the analysis of flavors and fragrances
• Tuesday, May 16 – Vince Remcho on novel high-throughput screening consumables
• Wednesday, May 17 – Milton Lee on compact microchip thermal gradient GC
• Thursday, May 18 – Len Sidisky on new ionic liquids in separations
• Friday, May 19 – Richard Smith on interfacing ion mobility spectrometry with mass spectrometry.

ISCC & GC×GC 2017 takes place in Fort Worth, Texas, May 14–19.www.isccgcxgc.com