Preview of Pittcon 2015 LIMS & Informatics Events

Sessions, Symposia, Short Courses and Workshops to Attend

The Pittsburgh Conference, aka Pittcon, is the premier conference and exposition on laboratory equipment and chemical analyses in North America. This year it returns to Ernest Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, LA from March 8-12.

As always, there are LIMS and Informatics sessions, short courses, and workshops to bring you up to date on the latest in LIMS, informatics, laboratory automation and laboratory regulations. These events are spread throughout the week, but with many key presentations taking place on Thursday March 12.    

These include a special treat this year: a Chemical Safety Workshop being chaired by Technology Networks’ editor Helen Gillespie.  During this workshop, presentations will cover chemical regulations that affect R&D labs and an in-depth user experience implementing a chemical inventory management system as well as analyst and vendor perspectives on how to best manage chemical inventory to ensure safety and compliance.

To assist you in making the rounds of LIMS and Informatics events and exhibitors, this article highlights the details at press time.  

At a Glance: LIMS and Laboratory Informatics/Regulations Sessions

• ALMA Lab Management (Sunday Workshop)
• Lab Informatics and Data Manipulation (Monday Oral Session)
• Bioinformatics: Metabolite Identification and Quantification (Monday Oral Session)
• Recent Initiatives by FDA (Wednesday Oral Session)
• Data Manipulation and Laboratory Informatics (Thursday Oral Session)
• Chemical Safety Challenges & Solutions (Thursday Workshop)
• Laboratory Informatics (Thursday Oral Session)
• Laboratory Management (Thursday Oral Session)
• The Analytical Information Markup Language: Ten Years from Jungle to Savanna (Thursday Workshop)

SUNDAY, MARCH 8

ALMA Lab Management Workshop, Room 269, 1:00-4:30pm
Organizer: Dennis FH Swijter, IFF R&D
Laboratories are an integral part of any technology-based company. Their output heavily depends on well-functioning laboratories, which should be viewed as an investment in the future, not as a cost. It is up to the laboratory manager maximize the laboratory's contribution to the company's bottom line. In this session the speakers will share best practices and experiences on how this can be achieved.

MONDAY, MARCH 9

Lab Informatics and Data Manipulation, Room 270, 8:30-11:30am
Organizer: Graham McGibbon, ACD/Labs

Bioinformatics: Metabolite Identification and Quantification, Room 261, 1:30-4:30pm
Organizer: Xiang Zhang, University of Louisville

Metabolite identification and quantification are the two main research topics in current metabolomics. This session brings scientists from both industry and academia for education and networking, during which the latest development in bioinformatics tools for analysis of GC-MS, LC-MS and NMR data will be introduced.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11

Recent Initiatives by FDA, Oral Session, Room 269, 8:30-11:30
There have been a number of initiatives in the past couple of years by compendia and FDA significantly impacting analytical development practices at the pharmaceutical companies in support of new drug products. For example, USP has published stimuli articles on Lifecycle Management of Analytical Procedures in 2013 which is based on process validations as described in ICH Q8, Q9, and Q10 and these concepts can be applied to analytical procedures. USP has then proposed a new chapter <1200> on requirements for compendial validations to replace the existing chapter <1225>. In a couple of other stimuli articles, USP has described new approaches on analytical method linearity and on alternatives to official compendial analytical procedures. FDA published draft guidance on analytical procedures and methods validation for drugs and biologics in 2014 describing the concepts of Design of Experiments. FDA and EMA have initiated a joint project on use of QbD concepts in analytical development for drug products. Renowned speakers from FDA and pharmaceutical industry will discuss impact of these initiatives on analytical development practices in the pharmaceutical industry.

THURSDAY, MARCH 12

Data Manipulation and Laboratory Informatics, Room 252, 8:30-11:30
Organizer: Stuart J Chalk, University of North Florida

Chemical Safety Challenges & Solutions, Room 269, 1:30-4:30pm
Organizer, Helen Gillespie, Technology Networks
Regulations concerning laboratory chemicals – particularly hazardous materials – have been growing at a rate of >30% for the past few years, making it difficult for labs to stay current and ensure compliance. Many of these regulations focus on chemical safety and reporting, requiring compliance by everyone involved with chemical use from the bench chemist to the lab manager to the chemical hygiene officer.  This workshop will highlight challenges research labs face pursuing chemical safety compliance, and presents solutions for better chemical management, tracking and reporting. A close look at regulations that affect the lab, methodology for addressing the regulations and case studies of successful chemical management solutions will be presented.

Laboratory Informatics (Half Session), Room 272, 1:30-2:30pm
Organizer: Jinesh Jain, URS Corporation

Laboratory Management (Half Session), Room 255, 1:30-2:30pm

The Analytical Information Markup Language: Ten Years from Jungle to Savanna
Organizer: Stuart J Chalk, University of North Florida
After ten years of design and development, the first of the ASTM E13.15 Subcommittee's AnIML (Analytical Information Markup Language) standards going through balloting. Designed to facilitate organizing, interchanging, and archiving data through the use of Extensible Markup Language (XML), AnIML can handle the result data and metadata from any analytical chemistry experiment. This workshop will discuss the background, philosophy, and development of AnIML. Use of the AnIML standard will be demonstrated in the industrial, academic, and government sectors.

FROM A TO Z: LIMS AND INFORMATICS VENDORS EXHIBITING AT PITTCON 

The Exposition floor will be open from Monday, March 9 to Wednesday, March 11, 9:00-5:00 and on Thursday, March 12, from 9:00-3:00.

Abbott Informatics (formerly STARLIMS), 2844
Accelerated Technology Laboratories, 2847
Advanced Chemistry Development (ACD/Labs), 2948
Agaram Technologies, 3055
Allotrope Foundation, 3043
Autoscribe Informatics, 2837
Bio-Rad Labs, Informatics, 2537
BIOVIA (formerly Accelrys), 2840
BSSN Software, 3041
Cerno Bioscience, 2022
ChemWare, 3037
Ethosoft, 2841
Excellims Corporation, 3047
Khemia Software, 2843
LabAnswer, 2845
LabMinds, 729
LabVantage Solutions, 2937
LabWare, 2943
Lonza, 726
Molnar Institute, 1341
PerkinElmer, 1026
Promium, 3039
Quality Systems International, 2836
RURO, 2942
Siemens Industry, 1321
ST Japan, 2746
TALtech, 3029
Thermo Scientific, 2523
Waters Corporation, 3137

For additional details about Pittcon, please visit http://www.Pittcon.org.