COVER STORY
PITTCON
2003
Economic uncertainties, strong growth in selective areas, analytical Nobels, customer service, and new products are buzz of this year's instrument and lab equipment show STU BORMAN, C&EN WASHINGTON
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HIS YEAR'S PITTSBURGH CONFERENCE & EXPOSITION
on Analytical Chemistry & Applied Spectroscopy (Pittcon)—"the world's greatest exposition and technical conference on laboratory science," according to its organizers—reflected the times in which it was held The U.S. conflict with Iraq was a common topic of conversation among attendees at the conference—which was held this year for only the second time in sunny Orlando, Fla., a venue that belied such serious talk with its squeaky-clean andgood-natured artificiality There was an increased emphasis onbioterrorismat thisyear's conference, according to 2003 Pittcon President Mildred B. Perry who is also a physical scientist and senior analyst at the Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pittsburgh. HTTP://WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
Despite a generally poor economy, a then-looming war in Iraq, and cutbacks in business travel budgets, Pittcon registrationfiguresheld up fairly well. Total registration was 22,628—down less than 3% from 2002, when 23,270 people attended. The number of exhibiting organizations was up 10% to 1,260, but the number of booth spaces was down 2%. For tie first time this year, Pittcon hosted a "conference within a conference"— Laboratory Informatics 2003 (http://www limsconference.org), organized by the Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) Institute in Pittsburgh. The miniconference included symposia and a special area of the Pittcon exposition dedicated to LIMS and lab automation. INSTRUMENT BUSINESS. Uncertainties in the analytical instrument and testing business were a major topic of conversation on the Pittcon exposition floor this C & E N / MARCH 3 1 , 2 0 0 3
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COVER STORY year. According to Tanya Samazan, man- leading manufacturers of analytical instruaging editor of the newsletter Instrument mentation by revenue (in alphabetical orBusiness Outlook, "2002 was a year of re- der) are Agilent, Amersham Biosciences, structuring and reorganizations for ana- Applied Biosystems, PerkinElmer, Therlytical instrument companies." A number mo Electron, and Waters. of instrument makers combined business "Though most of these companies have units and nearly all "announced cost-cut- other businesses as well, each has analytiting initiatives, which in many cases in- cal instrumentation and lab equipment cluded layoffs." revenues of around $ 1 billion or greater an"Life sciences remains the fastest grow- nually," Sands said. Of the six leading coming market," Samazan said, "but some of panies, "Thermo Electron and Applied its luster has faded due to cautious spend- Biosystems stand out as the largest, with ing by the pharmaceutical and biotech in- Thermo addressing the broad analytical dustries last year and the announcement instrumentation market and Applied earlier this year of President {George W} Biosystems leading in bioanalytical tools." An extraordinary factor in the business Bush'sfiscal2004 budget request, which includes only a 2% increase for the Na- of late is that "governments around the world increased funding for homeland setional Institutes of Health budget." According to Lawrence S. Schmid, pres- curity, providing a boon for suppliers of analytical technologies for these applicaident and chief executive officer of Strategic Directions International, Los Angeles, tions," Sands noted. There has been particularly strong growth, for the publisher ofInstrument Busiexample, in ion mobility specness Outlook, 'The global analyttrometry-based systems—used ical and life sciences instrument in airports for detecting trace exindustry recorded revenues of plosives and chemicals—and in about $24 billion in 2002, while other trace detection equiprevenuesfromlaboratory equipment. "Such growth is expected ment such as centrifuges, fume to continue for some time as hoods, and heating and cooling funding from governments equipment totaled about $3.5 around the world in this area filbillion. Last year's growth varied ters down into sales," Sands said. by sector, with instrumentation COVER The Chinese market for sciensystems, aftermarket, and servSTORY tific instruments has been growice revenues increasing at over 8% from 2001, while lab equipment grew ing especially fast. at only about 5%. Life sciences instruDNA sequencer sales have been disapmentation saw double-digit growth, while pointing, but some genomics and protraditional instruments focused on mate- teomics instrument makers have experirials analysis experienced only a 4% ex- enced strong growth, says Sands, who is pansion." also editor of the genomics and proteomics Alex Sands, editor of the industry business newsletter Genomika. For examnewsletter Instrumenta, said the market ple, sales increased 27% last year for mi"weathered a tough year in 2002. It is, of croarraypioneer Affymetrix, he notes. And course, not immune to the general eco- mass spectrometry (MS) instrument sales nomic cycle and has been affected by agen- have been strong, owing to growth in proeral corporate cutback in capital equip- tein studies and life sciences applications. ment spending by its customers." "Mass spectrometer sales to the life sciThe fragmented nature of the instru- ences sector grew at over 20% in 2002, to ment business "makes it difficult to predict around $700 million," he said. 'Although the total market," Sands told C&EN, "but the growth is expected to slow, double-digInstrumenta estimates the analytical instru- it rates are still expected for at least the mentation industry was worth around $20 next few years." Research analyst Jennie Tsai of Gabelli billion and exhibited growth ofaround 5 to 8% in 2002." According to the newsletter's & Co., Rye, N. Y, who also follows the anmost recent industry scoreboard, the six alytical instrument industry, agrees that
MS is doing well. According to her estimates, she said, "the MS market in 2002 grew in the mid-teen percent range, consistent with growth rates in the past few years and driven mainly by proteomics for drug discovery" For the coming year, "my impression so far of capital spending is that there is weakness in some areas," Tsai said. Some pharmaceutical and biotech companies "have to spend on capital equipment, and they are buying, while others are postponing purchases if R&D budgets are tight and they don't necessarily need to buy the new machines right now. We'll get a better sense of how 2003 will pan out as companies report in April and provide their outlook." NOBEL YEAR. The popularity of MS was also reflected in plenary lectures held at Pittcon by two legends in thefield.One is emeritus professor of chemistry Fred W. McLafferty of Cornell University, who did groundbreaking MS mechanistic studies and who has a gaseous ion reaction named after him (the McLafferty rearrangement), among other achievements. The other is emeritus professor of chemistry John B. Fenn of Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, who shared half of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with KoichiTanaka of Shimadzu Corp., Kyoto, Japan) for "development of soft desoiption ionization methods for MS analyses of biological macromolecules." The other half of the 2002 chemistry Nobel went to Kurt Wuthrich of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Scripps Research Institute, Lajolla, Calif., "for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution." So it was a good Nobel year for analytical chemistry all around. In his Pittcon plenary lecture, McLafferty cited a number of groundbreaking contributions MS has made to biomedical research in past years: • Chemistry professor Carol V Robinson of the University of Cambridge, in England, and coworkers transferred massive biomolecular structures such as ribosome particles and virus capsids into the
Governments around the world increased funding for homeland security, providing a boon for suppliers of analytical technologies for these applications." 28
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gas phase in intact form to facilitate studies of their interactions. • A group led by chemistry professor Alan G. Marshall of Florida State University Tallahassee, set a world record for mass resolving power—approximately half-millidalton resolution—while achieving baseline separation of two peptides with different composition but the same nominal mass. • Chemistry professor Donald F.Hunt of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and coworkers devised techniques that have permitted routine MSbased sequencing of peptides, proteins, and, increasingly DNA as well, as a complement to the use of conventional peptide, protein, and DNA sequencers. And Fenn gave what he referred to as an "archaeological expedition" of the history of electrospray ionization (ESI), the
chromatograph. According to Dionex, the quality testingfirmbased in Loveland, Cosystem is "the first totally integrated and lo. —noted that for some 45 years, she flew preconfigured reagent-free ion chromato- small private corporate planes to towns graph designed to perform all types of elec- and cities around the U.S. to meet with and trolytically generated isocratic and gradi- assist water treatment lab personnel. "Did ent ion chromatography separations using the airplanes pay their way?" she asked conductivity detection." The reagent-free rhetorically "Probably not in a strict acfeature automates the preparation of elu- counting way, but in service to the cusents (separation solvents) and regenerants tomer as well as service to our employees, (resin restoratives), eliminating the usual who had so much traveling to do, it was a terrific benefit." need to prepare them manually Lukas Braunschweiler, president and Second place in the competition went to Thermo Electron for the Finnigan LTQ CEO of Dionex, noted that the company FT, which the company describes as the hires an outside firm to interview customers first hybrid ion-trap and Fourier transform who have used Dionex customer service. ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrome- Company officials then use this feedback ter. The system's high mass resolution and to evaluate and "incentivize" Dionex cushigh mass accuracy make it possible to an- tomer service employees, and they make alyze complex mixtures faster. "Despite the extensive efforts to address service shortprice tag of $750,000, this is new technol- comings identified in the interviews. And Lynnjarke, vice president and genogy, and it could take off like a scalded
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IT WORKS THIS WAY Instrument demonstration (photo at left) on Pittcon exposition floor. Participants in Centcom breakfast session were (from left) Jarke, Braunschweiler, Hach-Darrow. and Wilkinson.
technology for which he shared the Nobel Prize. Since Fenn's group developed the technique in the early 1980s, ESI has become an essential tool for the MS analysis of extremely large biomolecules. NEW PRODUCTS. More than most scientific meetings, Pittcon is dominated by its massive exposition, and this year was no exception. Some indication of highly regarded introductions emerges each year from the Pittcon Editors'Awards for best new products. This annual informal poll of editors and journalists covering Pittcon was organized this year by consultant Brenda Wilkinson of Kymaera, East Grinstead, England. In all, 21 products were nominated by 18 editors. (C&EN editors did not participate.) MS instrumentation was especially well represented among the nominations, according to Wilkinson, but the top winner was Dionex's ICS-2000 reagent-free ion HTTP://WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
dog," said one member of the editors' panel. Tying for third place in the competition were Leco's Pegasus 4D, an automated twodimensional gas chromatography and timeof-flight MS system that speeds chromatographic analyses and improves separation capability, and Ionalytics' Selectra, an add-on that uses an ion mobility spectrometry-based ion-filtering mechanism to improve the performance of existing mass spectrometers. CUSTOMER SERVICE. Analytical instrument companies are increasingly emphasizing customer service to improve their bottom lines, and this topic was highlighted in presentations at a Pittcon 2003 breakfast sponsored by Centcom, the American Chemical Society's advertising management unit. In her breakfast talk, Kathryn HachDarrow—former president, chief operating officer, and CEO of Hach Co., a water
eral manager of sales, marketing, and support operations at Agilent's life sciences and chemical analysis division, discussed future technologies that she said could aid instrumentation customer service. These include real-time diagnostic systems that anticipate failures and alert service providers, systems to automate routine calibration and qualification tasks, and systems that permit instrument company technicians to identify and fix problems remotely In concluding the session, the chairman of the breakfast—consultant Gordon Wilkinson of Kymaera, founder of the newsletter Analytical Instrument Industry Report, the predecessor of Instrumenta— quoted the late industrialist and General Motors president William S. Knudsen: 'A big corporation is more or less blamed for being big, but it is only big because it gives service. If it doesn't give service, it gets small faster than it grew" • C & E N / MARCH 31 , 2003
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COVER STORY PITTCON
2003
TAKING A CLOSE LOOK AT BRAIN CHEMISTRY Analytical chemists are developing techniques for investigating neurotransmitters CELIA M. HENRY, C&EN WASHINGTON
firing" or "phasicfiring,"Wightman said. Tonicfiringoccurs at a frequency of about 5 to 10 Hz, and it represents the basal firing rate. In contrast, phasicfiringoccurs in short, fast bursts that last less than half a second. "Before the development of these carbonfiberelectrodes, there was never away to follow these changes on subsecond timescales,,, Wightman told C&EN. "People didn't know what dopamine was doing on a fast timescale."
the release of dopamine, which is thought BY TRAINING RATS to respond to audiostarting to shine light on the to be part of the brain's reward system, on visual cues that are associated with a reworkings of brain chemistry. a subsecond timescale. He also uses mi- ward, in this case the self-administration At a symposium at Pittcon ear- croelectrodes fabricated from carbon of cocaine, Wightman's research is showlier this month, analytical fibers. Wightman was a pioneer in the ing that dopamine can be elevated in anchemists described their work to increase development of the carbon microelec- ticipation of receiving a reward. the understanding of this complex system. trodes that many chemists use to monitor When a rat is placed in a chamber with a lever that dispenses cocaine, the rat first 'Analytical chemistry in the brain is very neurochemistry challenging," symposium co-organizer R. One of the challenges is making sure presses the lever frequently to load up with Mark Wightman, the W R. Kenanjr. Pro- that he's really looking at dopamine. The cocaine and thereafter presses the lever at regular intervals. After the rat pressfessor of Chemistry at the Universies the lever, the amount of dopamine ty of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, increases. told C&EN. "There are a million Fluorescence emission wavelength, nm compounds, andyou want to pick out However, an interesting thing and look at one or two. Once you're happens when the rats learn to asable to identify them, you want to unsociate the cues with the adminisderstand what they're doing." tration of the cocaine. They experience an increase in dopamine when Christian Amatore, professor of they approach the lever but before chemistry at Ecole Normale Su7/ they press it. This dopamine increase perieure, Paris, described electrooeroionin Tryptophan Serotonin sulfate during "approach behavior" doesn't chemical monitoring of exocytosis, \ / \ happen with untrained animals, so the process of releasing materials it's not caused by just the cues. such as neurotransmittersfromcells, 300 "Before, people thought that using carbon fiber microelectrodes. * 7^: • H dopamine being elevated was a reFive independent physicochemi- 400 j ward in itself," he said. "We're lookcal stages govern exocytosis, Amaing at these real fast things, which tore said. In his presentation, he foSatiated animal 5 6 7 8 9 10 deal with the anticipation or the cused on the stages in which the Electrophoretic migration time, minutes alerting ofthe animal that something vesicle docks to the cell membrane, is going to happen." forming a fusion pore, and in which BRAIN PROBE Capillary electrophoresis Jonathan V Sweedler, professor the vesicle and cell membranes fully coupled with ultraviolet detection shows that of chemistry at the University of Illifuse. These stages affect the shape of hungry snails release more serotonin than nois, Urbana-Champaign, is trying the spikes observed during electrosatiated snails. to identify previously unknown chemical monitoring of neurotranscatabolites of neurotransmitters. mitters. When the fusion pore forms, a small amount ofthe vesicle contents is re- cyclic voltammetric signature of dopamine "%u want a fairly information-rich analeased, with a large spike of released mate- is similar to that of another neurotrans- lytical technique," Sweedler told C&EN. rial following full fusion. Amatore pointed mitter, norepinephrine. However, Wight-
