In June, a few lucky PhD students of our group had the chance to attend the 72nd conference of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) in Anaheim, USA. With over 7000 participants, it is the mecca for  mass spectrometry enthusiast from around the world. The dense program, with over 60 oral sessions and 3000 posters, did not make it easy to choose. For lipidomics enthusiast of course the sessions on anything lipid related were the place to be. 

Several presentations and posters made it quite clear that especially novel fragmentation techniques like EAD and OAD offer promising potential for lipid analysis and will surely have a big impact on the lipidomics field in the next few years. There were also interesting novelties reported for lipid data analysis, ranging from an update of MS-DIAL 5  from Hiroshi Tsugawa to the novel ALEX score from Jürgen Hartler, which is a promising concept for quality control of lipidomic datasets. 

Of course our group members Alex, Bianca and Stefanie also presented their own research: In 3 hour-long poster sessions they had the chance to discuss their projects with many interested fellow conference attendees. And to relax after an intensive day of scientific talks and posters, there was always the chance to get a drink at one of the sponsor’s evening hospitality suites. 

Overall, the conference was a great combination of science, networking and entertainment and will surely be one of the highlights of their PhD.