NEWS
EAS Nominations Nominations are being sought for the 1988 Eastern Analytical Symposium (EAS) Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Fields of Chromatography. The award consists of a plaque that will be presented at a special symposium arranged in honor of the awardee, to be held at the EAS in New York City, Oct. 3-8, 1988. The award is designed to recognize an individual who has helped to shape the fields of chromatography. A nominating letter describing the nominee's specific accomplishments and a biographical sketch should be submitted by Aug. 15, 1987, to Robert Weinberger, EAS Awards Committee, ABI Analytical, Kratos Division, 170 Williams Dr., Ramsey, N.J. 07446.
Fassel Receives Medal
12,000-sq.-ft. facility at 32 Commerce Center, Cherry Hill Dr., Danvers, Mass. 01923 (617-777-8034). Among the company's reasons for the move are the new facility's proximity to major universities and technology centers as well as access to a large, high-technology labor pool in the area. The Danvers complex will serve as VG's marketing, sales, service, and spare parts center for the United States.
Comments Sought on IUPAC Nomenclature The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has issued a preliminary version of "Chiroptical Techniques; Nomenclature, Symbols, Units" for comment by the community. Chiroptical techniques—optical (spectroscopic) methods that can differentiate between two enantiomers—include optical rotatory dispersion (ORD), circular dichroism (CD), ellipticity, circular polarization of emitted light (CPE), and circular intensity differential (CID). The document cites relevant references in the field, summarizes basic definitions and conventions, and presents chiroptical symbols and units. Quantitative correlations between phenomena are given, and a pentalingual dictionary of frequently used terms is included. Those interested in making comments may obtain a copy of the document from Journals Dept., American Chemical Society, P.O. Box 3330, Columbus, Ohio 43210. The deadline for receipt of comments is Aug. 15, 1987.
For Your Information
Velmer Fassel, who recently retired from Ames Laboratory at Iowa State University, received the Governor's Science Medal in February from Iowa governor Terry Branstead (above). Fassel earned the governor's tribute for his development of a number of analytical techniques and instruments, including the inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometer.
New Offices for ARL, VG Applied Research Laboratories (ARL) has entered into a contract to purchase a new 60,000-sq.-ft. headquarters facility in Valencia, Calif. The move to Valencia from the company's present location in Sunland is planned for December 1987. ARL was recently acquired by Fisons PLC of Great Britain. In addition, VG Instruments is expanding its support of the U.S. market by relocating from Stamford, Conn., to a
Materials designed to improve the reliability of blood serum cholesterol tests are expected to be available to clinical laboratories this summer from the College of American Pathologists (CAP). The new certified reference materials, which are in the form of freeze-dried human blood serum samples, are an outgrowth of a decade-long research agreement between CAP (5202 Old Orchard Rd., Skokie, 111. 60077-1034; 312-966-5700) and the National Bureau of Standards. The reference samples, developed to calibrate instruments used in the roughly 100 million cholesterol tests performed yearly, were themselves certified by isotope dilution mass spectrometry. Two fundamental patent applications covering the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) gene amplification technique have been granted to Cetus Corp. by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Cetus is currently involved in a collaborative effort with Eastman Kodak to develop a diagnostic test for the AIDS virus based on PCR technology. Current commercial AIDS tests detect AIDS antibodies (as opposed to the virus itself) and thus are useful only for screening purposes, whereas the procedure under development by Cetus and Kodak has the potential to be a confirmatory test. The method for amplifying gene sequences, which achieves million-fold increases in target DNA, was described by R. K. Saiki et al. {Science 1985, 230(4732), 1350-54). ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 59, NO. 11, JUNE 1, 1987 · 745 A
