Magnetic resonance and NIR combine in cancer diagnosis

Researchers at Dartmouth College and Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH, USA, have devised a new, potentially more accurate method for diagnosing breast cancer. They use MRI to produce an image of the breast and highlight potential cancerous sites. NIR spectroscopy is then used on these sites, giving information on haemoglobin levels, oxygen saturation and water content. These are indicators of cancerous tissue.

Their work is published in Optics Letters, doi: 10.1364/OL.32.000933

Pittcon Awards

A number of awards are made each year at Pittcon, and of these many are related to spectroscopy. The 2007 awardess are:

Maurice F. Hasler Award: D. Bruce Chase (DuPont Corporation) for his contributions to the field of vibrational spectroscopy.

Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award: Jonathan V. Sweedler (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign) for contributions in analytical neurochemistry, including laser-based detection methods and MALDI sampling techniques.

Pittcon Heritage Award: David Schwartz (Chairman, Bio-Rad Laboratories) for the development of the company he co-founded with his wife in 1952.

Pittsburgh Spectroscopy Award: Robert M. Corn (University of California at Irvine) for his leadership in the field of interfacial spectroscopy.

Tomas Hirschfeld Award: Gerard Downey (Ashtown Food Research Centre, Dublin) for significant contributions to the growth of NIR spectroscopy.

Williams–Wright Award: Michael Carrabba (Hach Homeland Security Technologies) for his developments of of many facets of Raman spectroscopy.

A full list of the awards and more detail is available at www.pittcon.org/technical/awards.html

New research training network

The “kick-off” meeting of the new EC FP6 Analytical Glow Discharge Research Training (RTN) Network “GLADNET” was held in Taormina, Sicily, on 18 February, immediately before the start of the Winter Plasma Spectrochemistry Conference. There are 16 partners in this Network, from research institutes, academia and industrial firms in 12 countries, involving all aspects of glow discharge (GD) spectrometry, optical emission spectrometry (OES) and mass spectrometry (MS) using high resolution, quadrupole and time-of-flight instrumentation. Both fundamental studies and analytical applications are included. A further 20 establishments are already GLADNET affiliates.

Within the Network, there are EC funded posts for 10 Early Stage Researchers (ESR) (PhD students) and five Experienced Researchers (ER) (post-doc fellows). Normal Marie Curie mobility conditions apply, with generous allowances. All the appointed researchers will have a much broader training than normally available at a single university or institute; they will attend six-monthly Network Training Meetings (normally linked to major conferences on spectroscopy, surface analysis and processes in ionised gases), and make working visits to other Partners in the Network.

The Network is coordinated by the Swiss Federal Institute for Material Science and Technology (EMPA), Thun, Switzerland; full details of the Partners involved and posts available are given on www.gladnet.eu.

This year’s Pittcon takes place in Chicago, IL, USA, from 25 February to 2 March. Over 1000 companies are exhibiting this year. There are a number of innovations this year, including specialised groupings of exhibitors in Life Science and LIMS, and the incorporation of the posters onto the exhibit floor. As always, there is an extensive conference programme.