MS world record

The largest yet mass-to-charge ratio of over 1 MDa with a single charge has been measured by Professor Renato Zenobi and his group at the ETH Zürich using a time-of-flight mass spectrometer with a pulsed UV laser for desorption and ionisation. They have not needed to resort to the use of multiply-charged ions, but have used an instrument equipped with a superconducting tunnel junction detector. This allowed simple and directly interpretable mass spectra to be obtained from immunoglobuline M (c. 1 MDa) and from von Willebrand factor, a group of proteins that play an important role in the coagulation of blood (signals at 0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2 MDa). dx.doi.org/10.1021/ac0482054, zenobi@org.chem.ethz.ch

Tomas Hirschfeld Award

The winner of the 2005 Hirschfeld Award, presented by the International Council for Near Infrared Spectroscopy (ICNIRS), is Professor Ana Garrido-Varo of the University of Córdoba, Spain. The award was presented at the Pittsburgh Conference in Orlando, FL, USA in March.

Professor Garrido-Varo’s main scientific work is in developing robust calibrations for use in the Spanish agro–food industry and the evaluation of analysis modes for the precise analysis of unground/intact agro–food products. www.icnirs.org

2006 Bunsen–Kirchhoff Award

The DASp (German Working group for Applied Spectroscopy) regularly awards the “Bunsen-Kirchhoff-Preis für analytische Spektroskopie” to honour preferably the work of young scientists from universities, research institutes or industry who made excellent contributions to analytical spectroscopy. A life-work of a scientific personality can be recognised as well.

The Award consists of an award document and an amount of €2500 sponsored by PerkinElmer GmbH. The DASp is seeking nominations for the 2006 Bunsen–Kirchhoff Award for Analytical Spectroscopy. The Award will be presented during a Bunsen–Kirchhoff Symposium at the Analytica Conference 2006 in Munich, Germany, from 25 to 28 April 2006.

Nominations must be made by members of the DASp, but any scientist meeting the requirements is eligibile. Self-nomination is not allowed. The decision as to whom the prize is to be awarded shall be made by a jury consisting of the current members of the board of DASp.

A nomination should include: a letter with the candidate’s accomplishments; a list of publications or recent work; scientific curriculum vitae stating the age of the candidate; the candidate’s address, phone fax and e-mail. All documents should be sent not later than 30 November 2005 to Professor Dr Hugo M. Ortner, Osterbichl 16, A-6600 Breitenwang/Reutte, Austria. hugo.ortner@tnr.at

Copernicus Award

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and the Fundacja na Rzecz Nauki Polskiej (FNP, Foundation for Polish Science) have established the first-ever Copernicus Award. This will honour researchers who have made outstanding and lasting contributions to German–Polish research cooperation, especially in the promotion of young researchers. Nominations are invited from researchers working at universities or research institutions in Germany or Poland or at scientific institutions devoted to German–Polish cooperation. Laureates will be selected by a jury of three German and three Polish representatives, and the award ceremony will be held alternately in Germany and Poland.

The prize money of €50,000 will be divided equally among the laureates, who may use the money for any scientific purpose within the scope of the funding programmes of the DFG and FNP. Nominations must be received before 15 October 2005. torsten.fischer@dfg.de, www.dfg.de/aktuelles_presse/preise/

Enols detected in flames by MBMS

Enols have not been previously detected in flames, but their presence has been discovered using molecular-beam mass spectrometry (MBMS). This work is the result of an international collaboration between the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Cornell University, Sandia National Laboratory in the USA, the University of Bielefeld, Germany and the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory in Hefei, China. The work was carried out at the Advanced Light Source facility at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in CA, USA. The MBMS instrument there is 40 times more precise than others in key energy measurements and takes advantage of the intensely bright beams from the Advanced Light Source. It is hoped that the discovery of enols in flames, which had not been incorporated into present-day computer models, will help in the development of cleaner burning fuels. dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1112532

MS in the life sciences

A new report, Mass Spectrometry: Opportunities in the Life Science Market, is available from Research and Markets. It analyses the market from the perspective of the end user and provides information on current usage of mass spectrometers as well as the suppliers researchers are most likely to buy from. www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c16181