From November 12 to 15, 2012, as in the preceding 50 years, the Eastern Analytical Symposium will bring a rich assortment of potential solutions and collaborations to its
attendees and contributors.

Summer is long gone now and as our minds focus on the luscious fall foliage and long, cold winter months ahead, we should also turn to the positive feelings that come from having new problems to solve and the ability to productively contribute to their solutions. This year's Eastern Analytical Symposium (EAS), being held November 12–15 in Somerset, New Jersey, will offer those positive feelings and a wealth of knowledge to help you find the solutions you need. To highlight the invited symposia in spectroscopy and related fields we have asked some of the chairs of the invited sessions to briefly describe their intentions as they pulled together well-known and well-respected speakers for their chosen topics. My hope, as the 2012 EAS program chair, is that this synopsis will encourage you to come, see, hear, and enjoy the directions that spectroscopy has taken over the past year. This is with the goal that once you return from EAS in November, you can use your new-found knowledge to energize your own laboratory and solve problems.

Mass Spectrometry

This year, Fred McLafferty, of Cornell University, is being recognized for his many transformative innovations over the last half century with the Award for Outstanding Achievements in Mass Spectrometry, to be given at a symposium in his honor. From developing electron-capture dissociation to offering fundamental understanding of gas-phase-rearrangement phenomena, McLafferty has been a towering figure in the field. Beyond his more than 500 publications on all aspects of the technique, the hundreds of colleagues McLafferty has trained over seven decades, many of whom have themselves made major contributions in mass spectrometry (MS), make his impact on the field almost unparalleled. Several former students will present in this symposium, including Neil Kelleher of Northwestern University, Gary Valaskovic of New Objective, Inc., and Edward Chair of Life Sciences Consulting, Inc. Among the topics to be discussed are the latest technologies for electrospray MS of whole proteins in the gas phase (the so-called "top down proteomics"), and recent advances in application of this technology to the area of expression genomics.

A two-session mini symposium titled "Mass Spectrometry of Large and Biomolecules" will feature leaders and emerging scientists from academia, industry, and instrument manufacturing. A wide array of recent developments that overcome challenges faced when using MS for the study of large and biomolecules will be discussed, including method development and applications for proteomics and metabolomics, as well as the analysis of oligonucleotides, polymers, and supramacromolecules. For example, Martin Gilar of Waters Corporation will discuss liquid chromatography (LC) separations for complex mixtures of oligonucleotides, peptides, and glycopeptides. Kimberly Ralston-Hooper of Duke University will present proteomic applications in environmental toxicology. Jiong Yang of Merck will speak on modified oligonucleotide sequencing for identity confirmation of phosphorothioate-containing siRNAs. Chrys Wesdemiotis of the University of Akron will discuss method development for MS analysis of synthetic polymers and supramacromolecules. The effect of peptide structure on matrix-assisted laser desorption–ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI TOF-MS) signal intensity will be presented by Kevin Owens of Drexel University. Sarah Trimpin of Wayne State University will put forth new ionization approaches, Gary Kruppa of Bruker Daltonics, Inc., will touch on applications using MALDI-TOF for biopharmaceutical quality control, and Mark Cancilla of Merck will acquaint the audience with MS-based assays for the characterization of oligonucleotides.