NEWS OF THE WEEK
LINDA WANG/C&EN (BOTH)
CHEMISTS MEET IN WASHINGTON, D.C. ACS MEETING NEWS: Global security
is the theme of well-attended meeting in the nation’s capital
B
RAVING THE CITY’S legendary summer heat and
humidity, more than 14,000 chemical scientists converged on Washington, D.C., last week for the society’s 238th national meeting. From Aug. 16 to 20, attendees presented more than 8,000 papers covering the spectrum of chemical sciences and technology. The meeting’s theme, “Chemistry & Global Security— Challenges & Opportunities,” was reflected in 120 of the meeting’s nearly 900 oral and poster sessions. Social events included the popular ChemLuminary Awards ceremony that honors technical divisions and local sections. There was also a formal dinner honoring this year’s Heroes of Chemistry. Among other events were the popular Sci-Mix poster session and mixer, a fun run, and a community outreach event with local schoolchildren. Governance units meeting in Washington included the ACS Board of Directors, nearly all committees, regional caucuses, and task forces. The ACS Council had one of its longest meetings in some time on Aug. 19. Clocking in at just over four hours, councilors discussed, but declined to approve, petitions to amend the society’s governing documents relating to election procedures. They will take these issues up when the council meets next spring in San Francisco. According to the Committee on Budget & Finance, it looks like ACS will end the year with total revenues of about $462 million, which is $17.8 million less than had been budgeted. The committee expects revenue from operations to exceed expenses by around $11.2 million, which is $528,000 more than budgeted.
That said, ACS is still out of compliance with the board-established financial guideline that roughly measures the adequacy of the society’s reserves. ACS is, however, doing considerably better than it was at the end of 2008, with $129 million in unrestricted assets as of July 31; on Dec. 31, 2008, it had $69 million in unrestricted assets. The meeting attracted 14,234 attendees—the largest ever at a Washington, D.C., national meeting— including 8,531 regular registrants, 3,152 students, 1,438 exhibitors, 655 exhibit-only registrants, and 458 guests. There were 453 booths, 307 exhibitors, and six workshops at the exposition. At the Career Fair, there were 43 employers with 326 jobs posted and 983 candidates. The showing by employers was up just a little from the historic low set at the spring 2009 ACS national meeting in Salt Lake City. On a sad note, at their meeting councilors learned that their colleague and former ACS Board member, Paul R. Jones, 68, died on Aug. 16 in Denton, Texas. Jones was a faculty member at the University of North Texas, in Denton, from 1968 until his retirement in 2006. C&EN will run an obituary as soon as information becomes available.—LINDA RABER
The exposition offered visual variety for meeting attendees.
Lane introduces awardees during the ChemLuminary ceremony on Tuesday night.
PHARMACEUTICALS Extended reactor outage worsens shortage of imaging isotopes A longer-than-expected shutdown at a Canadian nuclear reactor is worsening a global shortage of isotopes for medical imaging procedures such as bone scans and blood-flow monitoring. Atomic Energy of Canada has disclosed that its reactor in Chalk River, Ontario, will be out of commission until the first quarter of 2010. When the reactor was first shut down in May after a heavy-water leak, the agency anticipated only a threemonth outage (C&EN, June 1, page 8). The reactor produces about 50% of
the world’s supply of molybdenum-99, the raw material for technetium-99m, a key isotope in medical imaging. According to Covidien, a major imaging company, medical communities in the U.S. and Canada are most affected by the outage. In a letter to customers, John Collins, the firm’s vice president for U.S. operations, warned that the situation could get worse early next year when a reactor in the Netherlands goes down for six months of extensive maintenance. A survey of hospitals and other imaging
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facilities released last week by the Society of Nuclear Medicine finds that more than 80% are affected by the 99Mo shortage. Many imaging centers are postponing or even canceling procedures. Others are switching to an alternative imaging technique that involves thallous chloride. At the same time, the imaging industry is looking for a longer-term solution. Reps. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.) recently introduced legislation to promote U.S. production of 99Mo. —MICHAEL MCCOY
