Scope: Hybrid mass spectrometers are designed to combine the best features of different mass analyzers in order to obtain highly desirable performance characteristics and unique analytical functions that are not attainable with non-hybrid systems. The type and quality of data depends greatly on the physical characteristics of individual devices implemented on each stage. This sessions aims to present instrumental developments in tandem hybrid mass spectrometry spanning application areas from inorganic chemistry to identification of large molecules and the study of molecular complexes, and to foresee the future of this type of instruments.

Keywords: Hybrid instrumentation, Tandem mass spectrometry, Instrumental development

Scope: New methods and instrumentation have advanced the structural characterization of large biomolecules and complexes. This session focuses on newer methodologies that have enabled the characterization of the primary and higher order structure of biomolecules, including newer forms of dissociation techniques, ionization methods, labeling strategies, and crosslinking.

Keywords: ETD, SID, Crosslinking, H/D exchange, Chemical modification, Ambient ionization techniques

Scope: Size-dependent physical and chemical properties of gas-phase clusters have been investigated using various experimental techniques coupled with mass spectroscopy. The purpose of this session is to discuss recent progress in the field of structures and chemical reaction dynamics of clusters.

Keywords: Clusters, Spectroscopy, Electronic state, Geometrical structure, Reaction dynamics

Scope: Mass imaging technique is powerful tool to reveal molecular distribution in cells and tissues. There is still strong need for high spatial resolution and high sensitivity beyond the state-of-art. When the technology is pursued towards the limits of resolution, low abundance analytes and/or the need to sample species over a large dynamic range, issues arise that can be ignored in normal operation.

Keywords: Imaging Mass Spectrometry, Cells, Tissues, SIMS

Scope: Spray ionization has proven to offer the softest means to preserve noncovalent interactions in the gas phase including those of labile supermolecules; recently ambient ionization methods such as DESI have evolved for direct spray ionization of surfaces.

Keywords: Electrospray, Sonic spray, Non-covalent interactions, DESI

Scope: Proteomics, after 15 years of explosive development, faces unexpected challenges from the next-generation sequencing methods in other omics areas. What breakthroughs can address these challenges and advance proteomics beyond the state-of-the-art?

Keywords: De novo sequencing, Novel fragmentation techniques, Novel quantification technique

Scope: Ionization plays a crucial role for mass spectrometry. This session focuses on the new ionization methods for the next-generation mass spectrometry. Ionization may be taken place under vacuum or ambient conditions.

Keywords: Ionization, Charge Transfer, SNMS, Shockwave, Tribo-Phenomenon

Scope: This session covers the recent drastic development of electrostatic devices, i.e., ion storage rings and ion traps. Various aspects including lifetime measurements of metastable states, action spectroscopy by laser irradiation, cross section measurements for low-energy electron collisions, and their application to bio-molecular ions will be treated. Comparison between an ion storage ring and an ion trap with keV energies as well as the traditional RF ion trap focusing on their advantages will be also discussed.

Keywords: Electrostatic ion storage ring, Ion trap, Metastable states, Laser-induced action spectroscopy, Low-energy electron collision

Scope: Mass imaging technique is powerful tool to reveal molecular distribution in cells and tissues. There is still strong need for high spatial resolution and high sensitivity beyond the state-of-art. When the technology is pursued towards the limits of resolution, low abundance analytes and/or the need to sample species over a large dynamic range, issues arise that can be ignored in normal operation.

Keywords: Imaging Mass Spectrometry, Cells, Tissues, SIMS

Scope: Ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) is established as a powerful tool to characterize the 3-D structure of biomolecules and nanomaterials, and new theoretical results and instrumental methods point to a yet greater potential for the IMS approach. This session focuses on recent developments in nonlinear IMS or FAIMS employing strong electric fields, improved understanding of the IMS fundamentals, and novel instrumentation, which would provide the foundation for next-generation IMS technology.

Keywords: Ion mobility Spectrometry, High-resolution Differential IMS, New instrumentation, Theoretical analyses, Applications to bio & nano related molecules and materials

Scope: This session will cover new approaches for biomarker discovery and biopharmaceutical glycosylation profiling using mass spectrometry-based glycomics and glycoproteomics.

Keywords: Glycomics, Glycoproteomics, Glycobiomarker, Therapeutic antibody, Glycosylation

Scope: This session covers the topic of promising instruments (ion traps, quadrupole mass filters, time-of-flight instruments, etc.) and related techniques to realize on-site mass spectrometry. In recent years, design and development of miniature mass spectrometers has been at the forefront of research in mass spectrometry. These instruments have widespread applications, for example, detection and identification of chemical and biological hazards for homeland security, environmental monitoring, food safety, and so forth. The miniature mass spectrometers are capable of on-site analysis of these applications. It is considered that miniature instruments would be more commonly utilized in the future. Therefore, this session will become a good opportunity to share the knowledge of the present situation and future prospects.

Keywords: Miniaturized/portable mass spectrometers, On-site detection and monitoring, On-site sampling and preparation

Scope: Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) is an unique method for detection of several special rare isotopes such as ¹⁰Be, ¹⁴C, ²⁶Al, ³⁶Cl, ¹²⁹I and ²³⁶U, so on. Using these isotopes, new frontier is opened in many scientific fields including Earth environmental science. This session will summarize frontier applications of AMS in various fields and anticipate future prospects.

Keywords: Accelerator mass spectrometry, Cosmogenic radio nuclides, Anthropogenic nuclides, Radiocarbon dating, Isotope system, Beryllium-10, Iodine-129, Alluminum-26, Chroline-36, Carbon-14

Scope: During the past decade key theoretical and experimental studies of the kinetics of ion-surface collision phenomena have established a fundamental understanding of the principal mechanisms involved in both collision-induced dissociation and soft landing. Notably, moderate energy ion collisions on self-assembled monolayer surfaces are one of the most promising techniques for sequence determination for large peptides and protein complexes. Equivalent advances in the understanding of the time evolution of charge states and structures following low energy capture of ions on surfaces provide the basis for utilizing mass selected complex ions to create spatially dispersed functional devices. Several examples and instrumental advances enabling them will be described.

Keywords: Soft landing, Collision-induced dissociation, Ion-surface collision phenomena

Scope: Nuclear energy has paid an important role in global energy supplies. However, the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami has led to the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which has resulted in a significant question on nuclear energy development. The nuclear safety becomes an essential element for nuclear energy application. At the IAEA General Conference in September 2011, the IAEA Board of Governors approved and endorsed IAEA's /Nuclear Safety Action Plan/ by all 151 Member States, which is to strengthen the global nuclear safety framework. Mass spectrometry is powerful tool for both nuclear energy development and nuclear safety. The scientists and technicians who work at mass spectrometry society may contribute their efforts to fellow up the nuclear applications and safety. The 19^th IMSC will set a session to discuss the issue. The following subjects are encouraged: 1. ICP-MS, SIMS, GD-MS and other MS technologies applied to nuclear fuel and materials, water chemistry at nuclear power plant, environmental monitoring near NPP sites, global falls, sea water, sediments, remediation, etc..
2.Mass spectrometries including organic & biological MS applied to the effects of nuclide and radiation on human beings and biosphere.
3.New technology of mass spectrometry for nuclear applications and safety.

Keywords: Nuclear energy development, Nuclear safety

Scope: The development of glycoanalytical technologies have greatly enhanced the study of glycobiology, facilitating the discovery of disease-related solutions and providing an informative view of glycosylation and its relationship with other biological disciplines in a systems biology approach. Technologies for rapid and reliable identification of glycan structure as well as the advances of computer software and glyco database are discussed.

Keywords: Glycobiology, Glycotechnology, Structural analysis, Bioinformatics, Database, Data management, Automated annotation

Scope: Non-covalent ion–molecule interactions are the building principle underlying the gathering of ions and molecules beyond the quantum mechanical description of chemical bonds. They are the driving forces behind the solvation of ions, molecular recognition of ionic species, assembly of host–guest ionic complexes, formation of metal ion–ligand complexes, and folding of DNAs and proteins in ionic environments. This session invites the presentation of ion–molecule chemistry that deals with spectroscopy, structures, energetics, conformation, and reactions. Both experimental and theoretical works are welcome to the session. Professor Peter B. Armentrout at the University of Utah will deliver a keynote speech at this session.

Keywords: Noncovalent ion-molecule interactions, Molecular recognition, Collision-induced dissociation, Host-guest complexes. Ion-mobility.

Scope: The magnitude of many analytical problems is clearly exacerbated when trying to obtain the levels of precision required for the meaningful interpretation of isotope ratios, and this section of the analytical community is actively solving problems such as spectral interference and mass discrimination drift at new levels of sensitivity and precision. Continuous developments in inorganic mass spectrometry techniques have revolutionized the precision of the isotopic ratio measurements. Applications of the inorganic mass spectrometry in metrology or biochemistry are beginning to appear over the horizon. This session aims to present the instrumental developments for precise and accurate isotope ratio measurements and also to discuss the future direction of the techniques.

Keywords: Isotope ratio analysis, Inorganic mass spectrometry, Absolute analysis, Metrology, Imaging mass spectrometry, Mass bias, In-situ isotopic analysis, External correction

Scope: Mass spectrometry will soon take over the current diagnostic detection system to change the system to be versatile, sensitive, quantitative and qualitative. The potential of mass spectrometry for diagnosis will be discussed with basic and clinical validations.

Keywords: Disease-related biomarker, Clinical medicine, New diagnostic technology

Scope: The session will deal with two fundamental subjects in the matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI). The first subject is the mechanism for the gas-phase ion formation from a solid sample, i.e. a matrix-analyte mixture. The second subject is the mechanism for the dissociation of polyatomic ions such as protonated peptides generated by MALDI. The session will be a forum for the fundamental aspects of the processes rather than for the detailed mechanistic pathways for individual ions. Not only the presentations of experimental results but also those of theoretical and computational results will be accommodated.

Keywords: Fundamentals of MALDI, Gas-phase ion formation mechanism, Ion dissociation mechanism

Scope: Discussion of a metabolomics global profiling technology utilizing high-throughput dual column UPLC/MS/MS2 and GC/MS analytical methods for the analysis of complex biological samples.

Keywords:Metabolomics, UPLC/MS, GC/MS, Sample preparation

Scope: Mass spectrometric imaging (MSI) links the universal detection capability of mass spectrometry with the ability to record the spatial distributions of a wide range of atoms and molecules. MSI has penetrated almost all areas of analytical science and has found uses from detecting elements in industrial applications to determining drug and biological molecule distributions in tissue. Ever increasing demand for high spatial and mass resolution is driving development in analytical instrumentation. This session aims to present recent instrumentation developments in mass spectrometric imaging with emphasis on high resolution spatial and mass spectrometric characteristics.

Keywords: Imaging mass spectrometry, Instrumental development

Scope: Fragmentation mechanisms of gas phase biomolecular ions have been investigated using tandem mass spectrometry with a range of excitation methods including CID, ETD, ECD, and photo-excitation. Through a combination of experiments and theoretical calculations on model systems, it has been found that radicals can play a critical role in inducing fragmentation. This session covers the fragmentation mechanism of radicals formed by various excitation methods.

Keywords: Gas phase ion chemistry, Hydrogen atom transfer, Gas phase fragmentation, Radical ion reaction, Fundamental interest, Collision induced dissociation, Electron capture or electron transfer reaction, Electron collision, Electronic excitation, Photo excitation, Electron induced dissociation,

Scope: Over the last 20 years, bioanalysis in drug research and development has received benefits of selectivity and sensitivity achievable by mass spectrometry (MS) in conjunction with chromatographic techniques. There are, though difficulties and problematic issues needed to be overcome or to be cared for proper results, which mostly become apparent in liquid chromatographic approaches with MS. To obtain proper results, analyses have to be conducted correctly under necessary regulations or guidelines that must be fair and scientifically correct, and are preferably acceptable globally as internationally harmonized ones in future. This session covers the recent development in regulations and guidelines, which are not exclusive for LC-MS but also for ligand binding assays. Its related topics with new ideas and practical implementations for better MS-based bioanalysis and future prospect are also discussed.

Keywords: Regulation, Guideline, EMA, FDA, PMDA, MHLW, Mass spectrometry, Chromatography, Quantitation, Qualitative analysis, Bioanalysis

Scope: Carbohydrates and glycoconjugates are widely dispersed in nature; the importance of their roles and their broad and continuously changing structural heterogeneity are now coming to be much more appreciated in the community, yet the tools for their characterization require substantial further development. To fully determine and profile the types and distributions of glycan structures, both in the human population and throughout nature, researchers worldwide are generating novel methodologies and significant modifications of the mass spectrometry-based techniques and bioinformatics tools that facilitate peptide and protein analysis. This session will highly the dynamic research and new applications in mass spectrometry for glycobiology.

Keywords: Glycans, Glycoconjugates, Glycolipids, Glycoproteins, Glycopeptides, Ion mobility spectrometry

Scope: Recent advances in lipidomics have given rise to advanced methods for precise structure elucidation of molecular lipids as well as mapping their distribution within biological tissue. The structure and location of lipids have proved to be tightly connected to physiological function of specific tissues. In particular, recent advances in mass spectrometry such as ozone-induced dissociation, covalent adduct chemical ionization and high energy collision induced dissociation now allow the precise positions of carbon-carbon double bonds (and other subtle structural features such as sn-position) to be assigned online even within complex lipids. Advances in mass spectrometric methods for lipidomics and their applications will be discussed.

Keywords: Phospholipids, Molecular species, Double bond localization

Scope: Reports in this session will be presented on applications of mass spectrometry to new areas of research in microbiology, and on new instrumental and chemical methods for mass spectrometry-based analysis of bacteria and viruses.

Keywords: Bacteria, Virus, Identification, Metabolome, Host-microbiome interaction

This session would cover the exciting new field of IR spectroscopy of cold and room temperature ions with emphasis on the currently hotly debated structural issues on peptide fragments.

Keywords: Ion spectroscopy, Infrared lasers, Fragment structures, Modeling, Peptides vibrational spectra, Specific ion activation, Fragmentation modeling

Scope: The session will focus on recent advances, applications, and challenges in the field of mass spectrometry in pharmaceutical drug discovery and development.

Keywords: Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics, Drug development, Drug discovery, Metabolite, Quantification

Scope: Thanks to application of chemometrics to intricate SIMS data, information from SIMS has been expanded. For instance, subtle changes in molecular structures and distributions of biomolecules in tissues can be obtained with SIMS. In this session, brand-new SIMS studies in terms of data processing and informatics will be discussed.

Keywords: Chemometrics, Multivariate analysis, Data processing, Informatics, G-SIMS, Database

Scope: The analysis of noncovalent protein complexes by mass spectrometry has advanced to the study of protein-ligand and protein-protein complexes and as large as the MDa range. In this session, the structural characterization of protein complexes of importance to biology will be discussed.

Keywords: Noncovalent complexes, Electrospray ionization, Protein, Molecular machines, Ion mobility

Scope: This session focuses on the recent advances in the understanding and applications of tandem mass spectrometry of peptides/proteins involving radical intermediates.

Keywords: ECD, ETD, ISD MALDI, Peptide radical ions

Scope: Spectrometry Conferences. The Fifth symposium will be held in conjunction with the 19th International Mass Spectrometry Conference, Kyoto, Japan, 15 – 21 September 2012.

5 Postgraduate Awards
• 5 awards of $1500 will be made to assist the awardees in travel and attendance at the conference.
• Each winner will receive a complimentary subscription to JMS
• The postgraduate student winners will include representatives from Europe/Africa, Asia/Oceania and the Americas.
• Each winner will present a 15-minute talk on their work in the JMS Awards Symposium.
• Each winner will receive a certificate and mention in the Journal and have the opportunity to publish their paper in the journal if they choose.

Scope: This session will cover informatics methods for the MS-based identification of molecules including proteins, peptides, and metabolites and their application to the analysis of large data sets. A special emphasis will be placed on benchmarking of methods and testing the significance of their results.

Keywords: Database searching, Spectrum libraries, de Novo Sequencing, Significance testing, PTM localization

Scope: To elucidate transport and fate mechanisms for POPs on a global scale using advanced analytical tools such as congener-specific and enantioselective analysis and efficient data evaluation.

Keywords: POPs, Chiral analysis, Fate of chemicals, Enantioselection, Congener-specific determination, Source tracking, Arctic environment

Scope: Recent advances in IM-MS instrumentation have impacted the analysis of a wide range of biological molecules, from lipids, carbohydrates, peptides, and nucleic acids to larger macromolecules. The development of new IM-MS instruments and their applications to chemistry and biology, including proteomics, will be presented.

Keywords: Ion mobility, Conformation, Molecular structure, Protein, Nucleic acids, Lipids

Scope: Challenges in high resolution and high accuracy mass measurement mass spectrometry” will provide a forum to present and discuss research concerning mass spectrometry instrumentation, and particularly instrumentation which can be applied to modern FTMS instruments FT ICR, Orbitraps/Kingdon and Cassini traps, multiple pass TOF instruments, Zaifman traps, Applications-related topics will include: applications of ultrahigh resolution and mass accuracy, isotopic resolution of high mass proteins, fine structure of mass peaks, elemental composition determination from accurate masses, analysis of complex systems, computational modeling, and more.

Keywords: Instrumentation, High mass resolution, High mass accuracy, FTMS, FT ICR, Orbitraps/Kingdon traps, Cassini traps, Multiple pass TOF

Scope: Metabolic profiling to find newborn patients with metabolic diseases has long been a key technique of MS working for biochemical and laboratory medicine. Currently, tandem mass spectrometry is used for the newborn screening to detect the patients with a wide spectrum of inborn errors of metabolism, and is identifying several amino acid, organic acid and fatty acid disorders in many countries with different programs. The Japanese Society for Biomedical Mass Spectrometry (JSBMS), a pioneering society in this field, is organizing this session to include the technical and clinical aspects of MS for metabolic disorders.

Keywords: Inborn errors of metabolism, Screening, Metabolic disease, Clinical metabolomics, Clinical mass spectrometry

Scope: This session will cover informatics methods to extract quantitative information from mass spectra. The main focus will be detection and correction interference, testing the significance of measured changes in quantity, and applications of the methods to the analysis of large data sets.

Keywords: Label-free, SILAC, Interference detection, Significance testing

Scope: To develop powerful cost-efficient techniques for quantification of legacy pollutants and screening for emerging pollutants, including hyphenated techniques and various environmental applications.

Keywords: Emerging pollutants, POPs, PPCPs, Hyphenated techniques, Polutant characterization, Prioritization, Emission and exposure assessment, Risk evaluation

Scope: Ion chemistry plays a critical role in the application of mass spectrometry for the structural characterization of biological molecules in the gas-phase. This session will focus on highlighting recent advances in fundamental gas-phase ion chemistry and instrumentation development, and their application to address challenges in life science research.

Keywords: Ion activation, Dissociation, MS/MS, Proteomics, Peptide, Lipidomics, Lipid

Scope: Mass spectrometry is a method to determine the m/z of various compounds ionized in ion source. At the beginning of the last century, the first mass spectrometer was developed for atomic and molecular physics. Since then, various types of mass spectrometer which uses different manner to achieve mass separation and detection are invented. They cover wide target application, such as from elemental analysis to protein analysis. The new ideas and improvement of separation techniques or detection technologies are expected to continue expanding range of application. This session aims to present instrumental developments in mass separation and detection techniques including simulation or making prototype equipment.

Keywords: Instrumentation, Simulation, Detector, Ion optics

Scope: Rapid progress has been made in mass spectrometry-based proteomics. However it is still a challenging task to unveil proteome world even when the state-of-the-art proteomics technologies, and novel methodologies must be developed. This session will focus on the new proteomics methodologies including SRM quantitation, post-translational modifications and other methodologies applicable to proteome-wide analysis of cells and tissues.

Keywords: Proteome-wide approach, Quantitation, Post-translational modification, Protein-protein interactions, In-depth proteome analysis

Scope: Ambient ionization mass spectrometry has evolved and grown to become one of the most important techniques for efficiently characterizing the analytes from various surfaces and matrices. This group of the techniques differs from the traditional ionization sources in that the experiment is performed under ambient conditions without sample preparation. The technique allows direct, real-time, and high-throughput analyses and has been successfully applied to different areas within the life, health and industrial sciences. With the evolution of new designs, variants, combinations and hybrids; a number of ambient ionization techniques based on the differences in sampling/desorption (ca. nebulization, laser desorption/ablation, and thermal desorption) and ionization processes (ca. electrospray ionization and atmospheric pressure chemical ionization) were developed. The main focus of this session will be on the instrumentation of ambient ionization mass spectrometry and its applications. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
• New ambient ionization sources
• Interface for chromatograph and ambient mass spectrometry
• Principle of ambient ionization processes
• Applications related to food safety and sciences, drug analysis, forensics, environmental chemistry, homeland security, proteomic and metabolomic studies, molecular imaging, and other chemical and biochemical researches.

Keywords: Ambient, Electrospray ionization, Atmospheric pressure chemical ionization, Sampling, Desorption

Scope: Mass spectrometry is now a strong analytical tool for cell biology. New methods and updated applications for cellular omics, cellular pathway analyses and single cell analyses will be discussed in this session.

Keywords: Single cell analysis, Organella, Intracellular distribution, Microanalysis, Microdisection