MaSC - ANNOUNCEMENTS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Mass Spectrometry Applications in Art, Cultural Heritage, and Natural History

ASMS 2012 Vancouver Canada

Art, Culture, and Natural History Interest Group
Monday May 21st, from 5:45-7:00 pm, Room 114-115
Mehdi Moini, presiding

The purpose of this workshop is to bring together scientists, conservators, and curators interested in mass spectrometry (MS) applications to art and cultural heritage objects, as well as natural history specimens. This will be an interactive workshop in which various subjects relevant to the application of MS to museums' specimens will be discussed in a casual, dialog format. A preliminary list of topics include: 1) Analysis of proteinaceous and organic specimens such as silk and wool textiles, leather and animal guts objects, bone and tissues, ink, paper, paint, coatings, binders, and wood. 2) Analysis of the fundamental factors that cause degradation of museums' objects; identification of their deterioration markers, using degradation markers as clocks for dating objects, and studying environmental factors that affect deterioration. 3) Application of MS to paleo-organic matter such as fossilomics, amino acid racemization, and ancient DNA. 4) To be determined.

2013 MaSC Workshop and Meeting

Location and dates to be announced soon

Special Edition of the International Journal of Mass Spectrometry on Art and Cultural Heritage

The July 2009 issue of the IJMS (Vol. 284), edited by Ester Ferreira and Ron Heeren, covers mass spectrometry of art and cultural heritage. The journal is published by Elsevier and is available on ScienceDirect. If you don't have a subscription to ScienceDirect, electronic articles can be purchased individually or the complete issue is available for purchase in hard copy.

Submissions of mass spectral data are now being accepted.
Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA hosted the Fifth MaSC Workshop and Meeting on 9th - 13th May, 2011, jointly organised by Harvard Art Museums and the MaSC committee. The workshop was held at the Straus Center for Conservation, Harvard Art Museums and covered laser desorption mass spectrometry (LDMS) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI). Presentations at the meeting were held at the Sackler Museum, Harvard Art Museums.
A workshop and meeting were held 31 March - 3 April, 2009 in London, UK. The workshop was held at the National Gallery, London and focussed on GC-MS data treatment, processing and analysis, including mass spectral deconvolution, extraction and interpretation and the application of chemometric methods. Presentations at the meeting, which was held at the British Museum, covered gas and liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, and combinations thereof.