I have been attending AOAC Annual Meetings for more than twenty years now. This one will be special in several ways. It will be the first – ever – virtual annual meeting. Secondly, instead of having an intense week with many parallel presentations, the entire meeting will be stretched over a period of almost three weeks, from the 8th September to the 24th September. For some of us it will mean an early rise, others will have to stay up late (like us from Europe).
Here are some of the highlights of the meeting:
On 8th and 9th, the meeting will be kicked off with the Analytical Solutions Forum. The talks not to be missed are those by Jim Harnley (USDA) on Chemometric Applications to Control Risk and the double act by Peter Embarek (WHO)/Franz Ulberth (EC JRC) on Early Warning Signaling in Food Safety.
On Thursday 10th there will be the session on Food Authenticity Method Criteria chaired by Palmer Orlandi (AOAC) . With the many developed methods, the major question is: how to assess which ones are fit for purpose. Our Bert Pöpping (FOCOS), Scientific Advisor to the Food Authenticity Task Force, will be introducing the topic. Bert will be followed by eminent speakers from the botanicals and herbs & spices industry. Joe Boison, John Szpylka (FSNS) and Daniele Sohier (Thermo Fisher) will be talking about SMPRs for food chemistry methods and DNA-based methods. It’s also worth highlighting the presentation by Mikko Hofsommer (GfL) , Gina Clapper (USP) and Dana Krueger (Krueger Labs) in the “International Approaches to Tackle Food Fraud” session on September 21, chaired by Michael McLaughlin (FDA).
On Friday, 18th September, there will be a very interesting session on DNA quantification – one of the eternal challenges of molecular biology. The speakers are literally from around the world: Kazumi Kitta (AFFRC, Japanese government) and Ian (FASMAC) from Japan, our Bert Popping (FOCOS) from Germany and Yann Jouvenot (Bio-Rad) from the USA. The session will be chaired by Tesuhisa Goto and Bert Popping.
Another session not to be missed will take place on Wednesday, September 23. This session will provide an update on gluten detection methods and reference materials. The session chaired by Linda Monaci (CEN) and Carmen Diaz-Amigo (FOCOS) will talk about the ThRAll project (Clare Mills), including challenging materials such as broth. Bert Popping will provide an update on the challenges of having a fit-for-purpose reference material for food allergens and gluten testing and the MoniQA approach. Jens Brockmeyer (University Stuttgart) and Melanie Downs (University Nebraska) will highlight benefits and challenges when detecting (and potentially quantifying) gluten and food allergens using mass spectrometry, especially in highly processed materials.
Still hungry for more topics? There are several sessions on cannabis and hemp detection, rapid pathogen identification methods and on novel pesticide and mycotoxin methods.
See you at the AOAC Virtual Annual Meeting 2020!
