Isranalytica 2018 review

In recent years, Isranalytica has become one of the biggest scientific events in Israel. The 21st Annual Meeting of the Israel Analytical Chemistry Society Conference & Exhibition, organized by the BioForum Applied Knowledge Center, was held in Tel Aviv on January 23–24, 2018. More than 3200 scientists from all over the world attended the show. The organizers arranged the program to cover a full spectrum of recent developments in the area of analytical chemistry. Four internationally renowned plenary speakers presented their latest results: Prof. Marco Vincenti, Director of the Regional Antidoping and Toxicology Center “A. Bertinaria” in Italy, spoke about the role of hair analysis in the investigation of drug-facilitated crimes. He reported that the drug becomes undetectable in the body fluids mostly after 1–4 days, whereas a low fraction of almost any drug gets incorporated into the keratin hair structure and can be recovered and detected even months later. Prof. Joseph Almog from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem focused on the importance of scientific methods in criminal investigations. He presented several cases of intricate crimes, which have been resolved by the application of modern instrumental techniques. Tina S. Morris from the United States Pharmacopeia, gave an overview of the almost 200-year history of USP and introduced the future developments of the quality standards. She discussed the latest trends in pharmaceutical manufacturing and their impact on the analytical science and new standards development. Andy Eaton from Eurofins Eaton Analytical, USA, spoke about the existing constraints in US drinking water regulations. He reported that most of the methods approved by US Environmental Protection Agency are developed and published 5 or more years prior to any use. The ways to take advantage of improvements in instrumentation and analytical procedures for drinking water analysis were discussed. After plenary lectures, 2 days were devoted to keynote and oral presentations running in four parallel sessions. All together, 74 leading researchers from academia and industry presented their recent achievements and addressed the most exciting developments. It has to be emphasized that the organizing committee designed the schedule very efficiently leaving plenty of time for questions and discussions at the end of the talks. Apart from the lectures, an exhibition with more than 60 exhibitors from Israel and abroad was organized. The vendors presented their products from a variety of areas, such as instrumentation, equipment, chemicals, materials, publications, analytical chemistry services, diagnostics and biotechnology. The meeting was a great success and a nice opportunity to learn about the newest trends in analytical chemistry and to establish new acquaintances and scientific partnerships. The organizing committee announced the conference next year, which will be traditionally be held in January in Tel Aviv.