27 Jul 2013
The 'Compositional Analysis of Lipids' meeting was held in Het Pand in Ghent, Belgium from 20 - 21 June 2013 and was attended by 48 delegates in total. The meeting was organised by SCI's Lipids Group in collaboration with Ghent University and EFL Physical Properties Division.
The venue continues to be popular with delegates with some attractive and scenic surroundings and many places of architectural and historic significance. The number of delegates attending was a little lower than originally forecast, however it was still a truly international event attracting delegates with 11 different nationalities from as far as Japan, Malaysia and the US. There were eight members, 11 non-members, four SCI students, four non-member students and three exhibitors/sponsors (Oxford, Bruker Optik and Reading Scientific Services Ltd (RSSL)).
The meeting was very successful from a technical perspective, with positive feedback received from delegates and although the numbers were lower than expected the meeting still generated a small surplus.
Prof Koen Dewettinck opened the meeting and welcomed delegates to Ghent. The morning session of the first day concentrated on the analysis of triglycerides and fatty acids and started with the Dr Julius Lewkowitsch award lecture, which was presented by Dr Craig Byrdwell (United States Department of Agriculture), who has authored numerous books, chapters and papers on lipid analysis using Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS).
The title of Dr Byrdwell's award lecture was 'Three and four mass spectrometers in parallel for lipid analysis - How many instruments are enough?'. It was an enlightening presentation which demonstrated the power of combining multiple mass spectrometer detectors for analysis of triglyceride and other lipids and illustrated what was possible with some hard work and ingenuity.
The Lewkowitsch award lecture was followed by presentations on 2-dimensional HPLC methods for analysis of triglycerides and the analysis of fatty acids from biological samples. This was followed by an opportunity for some of the several poster exhibitors to give an overview of their work and for the exhibitors and sponsors to briefly highlight there companies and latest developments.
The afternoon session of the first day concentrated on spectroscopy methods for analysis of lipids with presentations on NMR analysis of lipids followed by NIR applications for analysis of oils and fats lipids. The final presentation of the day highlighted the developments in super critical fluid chromatography mass spectroscopy.
The morning of the second day started with presentations on hyphenated techniques for analysis of major and minor lipid components followed by the use of Lipidomics to understand the role of bioactive lipids.
The final session dealt with the challenges and developments in the analysis of oils and fats for authenticity, quality and contamination and covered some topics of particular interest to the industry such as authenticity of olive oil and the detection of mineral oil in oils & fats and quantification of 3-MCPD and glycidyl esters.
Dr Natalie de Clerq from Ghent University organised an interesting tour of the facilities at Ghent for delegates after the presentations. SCI would like to thank Prof Koen Dewettinck and Dr Natalie de Clerq for hosting the meeting.
We would also like to thank our sponsors, Reading Scientific Services Ltd (RSSL), and the exhibitors, Bruker Optik and Oxford Instruments, for supporting the event. The organising committee (Kevin Smith, Fat Science Consulting Ltd, Robert Griffiths, RSSL, Gary Sassano, Unilever, Koen Dewettinck, University of Ghent, and Nathalie De Clercq, University of Ghent) would also like to thank the SCI conference team, and in particular Jacqui Colgate and Catherine Nicholson for their efficient administration and organisation of the event.
- The photo shows Dr Craig Byrdwell (left) receiving the Lewkowitsch Award from Dr Robert Griffiths, Secretary of the SCI Lipids Group.
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