7th Annual University of Auckland Mass Spectrometry Symposium Report

The 7^th UoA mass spectrometry symposium was held at the University’s conference centre on Friday 1^st December, 2023. Congratulation and thanks to the team from the FoS ShaRE mass spectrometry platform (Martin, Saras, Mark, Deanna, Jin) who did a superb job of organising and hosting the symposium, and looking professional in their LSMS Research Platform polo shirts. The day was opened and closed by the Faculty of Science’s Kaiarahi Teariki Tuiono, who extended a warm welcome to delegates from across the university, and from other parts of Aotearoa New Zealand and international guests from Australia and Finland. Our keynote speaker Prof Gavin Reid presented a fascinating talk on his recent research detecting trace amounts of illicit drugs from discarded paraphernalia using DART, and how this approach can make a direct impact on the safety of summer music festival attendees. In addition, Dr Sophia Whitlock shared the progress that New Zealand’s own mass spectrometry company Syft Technologies has made in ambient sampling and applications in life sciences. Making mass spectrometry mobile by converting vans seemed to be a theme of the day!

Regular presentations included updates from the Mass Spectrometry Hub, the Office of Research Strategy and Integrity (ORSI) on their support of research platforms at the University, and our technical experts on the new instrumentation now available on campus. In addition to entertaining scientific talks from all presenters, including some outstanding PhD students from across the UoA campuses, there was plenty of time for catching up with current colleagues and forming new connections amongst the approximately 80 registrants, which was a key goal of the day. The organising team would like to acknowledge and thank the FoS ShaRE platform and ORSI for their generous support of the event.