The September CASSS scientific meeting incorporating both CE Pharm and Mass Spec 2016 has just wrapped up in San Diego, CA. It was a great meeting for all involved. The smaller size and more focused subject matter, compared to some of the larger scientific meetings we’ve attended this year, really encouraged great interaction and high quality scientific discussions.

We first attended CE Pharm some years ago during the inception of ZipChip™ for life science applications. At that time the knowledgeable and insightful perspectives from thought leaders such as Oscar Salas-Solano of Seattle Genetics, David Passmore of Bristol-Myers Squibb and Seth Madren of Biogen was invaluable. The meeting helped facilitate robust discussions that enabled us to kicked around several ideas and possibilities for our microfluidic CE focus. These discussions certainly encouraged us to expand our vision to include the intact protein, antibody and antibody drug conjugate (ADCs) applications that ZipChip performs today.

Back then it was eye opening to hear multiple presentations discussing how conventional, stand-alone CE analyses struggled during QA/QC whenever production variants appeared. At that point in the process, full identification and characterization of the antibody variants is required, and these projects can take anywhere from weeks to months. We decided that by combining microfluidic technology – with its exceptional capabilities for sample prep, separation and electrospray – directly with full mass spec detection, we could have a real impact.

This year was just as insightful. There were many great posters and papers presented, and, of course, continued dialogue around what applications could be next for ZipChip. For the first time the meeting featured multiple presentations with data and real-world applications of microfluidic CE-MS from the likes of Pfizer, Biogen, Amgen, Thermo Fisher Scientific and our own scientists.

This month we are dedicating a blog post series to highlight our perceptions of the work we saw at the show. We welcome your thoughts and opinions and encourage you to contact the original authors for the scientific specifics.

By: Chris Petty, VP Business Development and Marketing at 908 Devices