B American Society for Mass Spectrometry, 2014DOI: 10.1007/s13361-014-0876-1

J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom. (2014) 25:1089Y1092

REVIEW

29th ASMS Asilomar Conference on Mass Spectrometryin Environmental Chemistry, Toxicology, and Health

Xing-Fang Li,1 Susan D. Richardson2

1Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada2Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

T he 29th ASMS Asilomar Conference on Environ-mental Chemistry, Toxicology, and Health was

organized by Xing-Fang Li (University of Alberta) and SusanRichardson (from the University of South Carolina) and tookplace October 18–22, 2013 at the Asilomar Conference Centerin Pacific Grove, CA. The conference showcased recentadvances in bridging mass spectrometry technology develop-ment and environmental chemistry, toxicology, and healthresearch. Mass spectrometry plays a pivotal role in advancingthe understanding of the environment and human/ecologicalhealth. Conversely, research in environmental and healthsciences further pushes the frontiers of mass spectrometrytechnology and method development. Linking these aspects,the symposium helped to facilitate multidisciplinary exchangeand collaborative opportunities. This conference focused onenvironmental contaminants of health importance, as well asbiomarkers of exposure and effect.

Although the government shutdown unfortunatelyprevented a few speakers and attendees from participating,the conference brought together approximately 90 attendeesfrom eight countries in the field of environmental massspectrometry, and invited speakers included both chemistsand toxicologists. The program included 20 invited talks, 15poster highlights, and more than 30 posters.

Following a brief welcome to the conference by thechairs, Gary Glish presented an interesting history of theAsilomar conference, including a mention of the “Libera-tors” (scissors that are used should any speaker dare to weara tie at this conference, which is casual by design to fosterinformal discussions and free sharing of information).

David Sedlak from UC-Berkeley and John Sumpter fromBrunel University (UK) then set the stage for the conference.David gave a fascinating talk on the history of urban waterstructure, beginning with the Romans (Urban Water 1.0),who constructed aqueducts to bring drinking water intocities, progressing to filtration and chlorination to killharmful pathogens (Urban Water 2.0), the construction ofsewage treatment plants (Urban Water 3.0), and now thefourth generation of Urban Water Structure, in whichincreasing populations and water scarcity are driving modernsociety toward advanced water treatment (e.g., reverse

osmosis, advanced oxidation, use of natural wetlands) forwastewater reuse. David highlighted some of his recent workwith constructed wetlands using open-cell treatment toremove environmental contaminants from wastewater. Johnthen gave a thoughtful overview of ecological issues ofpharmaceutical contaminants and suggested how chemistsshould consider not only the parent drugs, but also themetabolites, in their studies.

The first full day of the conference began with a sessionon Emerging Contaminants. Guibin Jiang (Chinese Acade-my of Sciences) opened with new research on persistentorganic pollutants and recent advances of environmentalscience and technology development in China. Jennifer Field(Oregon State University) made a case for droppingtraditional solid phase extraction (SPE) and using large-volume injection for LC/MS/MS analysis (“pimping outyour HPLC”). Jennifer presented examples of this approachusing Corexit from the Gulf Oil Spill, fullerenes, andperfluorinated compounds (PFCs). Damia Barcelo(IDAEA-CSIC, Spain) followed with pioneering work onnanomaterials in the environment, including the measure-ment of fullerenes in river waters, in aerosols, and in soilsand sediments. A new Cosmosil bucky-prep column usedwith APPI-MS enables improved sensitivity and detection ofC60 oxides, hydroxides, and toluene adducts. In addition,fullerenes were shown to aggregate and form humic acidcomplexes in surface waters. Scott Mabury (University ofToronto) followed with an excellent presentation on newfluorinated compounds in the environment (and how muchis still not accounted for, as judged by 19F NMR spectros-copy and total organic fluorine combustion-IC analysis). Hemade the case that there are newer PFCs now in blood andthere is a lot left to find.

The afternoon’s talks focused on new analytical devel-opments. Ultrasensitive Proteomics was the topic of NormDovichi’s (University of Notre Dame) talk, which includedthe use of CE-MS and LC-MS in bottom-up proteomics andshowcased extreme sensitivity (zeptomole detection limits)for single cell proteome analysis. Gary Glish (University ofNorth Carolina) gave a fascinating talk on different ambientionization and differential ion mobility spectrometry tech-niques for environmental applications, including new workon “paper spray,” which allows samples to be collected onpaper and shipped for analysis. Cynthia Larive (UC-Riverside)Correspondence to: Susan Richardson e-mail: richardson.susan@sc.edu

showcased the combination of LC-MS/MS with NMRspectroscopy to identify chlorination by-products of phar-maceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs). She madethe case that the disinfection by-products are not necessarilypredictable. Chris Le (University of Alberta) then gave anintriguing talk on the MS measurement of arsenic species inchickens, and how the arsenic (roxarsone) fed to chickens(for disease control) is not always fully eliminated before thechickens go to market. In this study involving 1600chickens, a dozen arsenic species were measured usingLC-ICP-MS and LC-ESI-MS in the feed, breast meat, blood,liver, kidney, intestines, skin, feathers, and litter. Thetoxicity ranged over six orders of magnitude, depending on

the species of arsenic present. Plasma-assisted reactionchemical ionization was the focus of another talk by KavehJorabchi (Georgetown University) on the measurement oforganohalogens. The session concluded with three posterhighlights on identifying new fluorinated surfactants inaqueous film forming foams and surfactant concentrates(Lisa D’Agostino, University of Toronto), 4-aminobiphenylexposure in smokers and nonsmokers in CDC’s NHANESstudy (Tiffany Seyler, CDC), and exposure, the exposome,and human health (Anthony Macherone, Agilent/JohnsHopkins University).

Saturday evening’s talks focused on multidisiplinaryapproaches, with Michael Plewa (University of Illinois)

1090 X. Li and S. Richardson: 29th ASMS Asilomar Conference on Mass Spectrometry

leading off with integrating biology and chemistry todiscover mechanisms for toxicity of drinking water disin-fection by-products. Michael showed new data revealing thathaloacetic acids irreversibly inhibit GAPDH, which lowersATP, increases calcium, and ultimately increases ROS incells, resulting in DNA damage. Wei Wang (University ofAlberta) followed with a presentation on halobenzoquinonesin swimming pools. Interestingly, halobenzoquinones werenot produced from urine, but were related to the use oflotions and sunscreens. Dewakar Sangaraju (University ofMinnesota) presented the poster highlight of the evening, onthe quantification of DNA adducts formed by 1,3-butadienein human blood using nanospray LC-high resolution-MS/MS.

Sunday morning’s session was titled EnvironmentalChemistry and Toxicology and was kicked off by anintriguing talk by Heather Stapleton (Duke University) onthe identification of flame retardants in common householdproducts, including couches, tents, and baby tunnels, andcombining human exposure work with analytical chemistry.She made a compelling argument for hand wipes being astrong predictor of internal dose of flame retardants inchildren. New insights were made into human exposurepathways to these environmental contaminants. Diana Aga(University of Buffalo) followed with an excellent talk onendocrine disrupting chemicals in animal waste, including agreat photo of her students standing in a big pile of manure.Manure is widely used in land applications, and Dianashowed how many endocrine disrupting hormones can bereleased from the manure. Slava Fishman (Dow Chemical)showed how mass spectrometry can be used to complementenvironmental remediation, and presented interesting monitor-ing data using a Geoprobe, which could go up to 30 m in theground and detect several important pollutants. YinshengWang (UC-Riverside) reported the induction of DNA double-strand break by arsenite, and Hailin Wang (Chinese Academyof Sciences) discussed potent DNA damage caused byhalogenated quinones and hydrogen peroxide. Yinsheng andHailin demonstrated unique applications of mass spectrometrytechniques for studying molecular toxicology of environmentalcontaminants. Finally, Lei Guo (UC-Riverside) presented aposter highlight on monomethylarsonous acid-induced prote-omic perturbation in human skin fibroblast cells.

On Sunday afternoon, attendees got to enjoy some freetime, in which some people went to see the famousMonterey Aquarium, others took a leisurely bike ride aroundPacific Grove, and others took a kayaking trip in MontereyBay, led by our Tour Guide Extraordinaire, ASMS’s ownJennifer Watson. (See accompanying photos). Kayakers gotto see close-up views of sea lions, seals, and the cutest-eversea otters in kelp beds.

Sunday evening opened up with Enrico Davoli (MarioNegri Institute, Italy) presenting a compelling talk on thebalance of drugs and emerging pollutants in the three watertables of Milan, Italy. Although these groundwater tablesare not supposed to be interconnected, Enrico showed clear

evidence of drugs (including illicit drugs) entering even the‘pristine’ lower water table of Milan from treated waste-water effluents. A fascinating aspect of this study is that themass spectrometry researchers could know the levels ofillicit drugs being consumed months before law enforce-ment knew. Ben Blount (CDC) then demonstrated howmass spectrometry can be used to characterize U.S.population exposure to harmful chemicals from tobaccoproducts. Ben covered not only traditional tobacco prod-ucts (e.g., cigarettes), but also smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes, and presented evidence using mass spectrometryhow charcoal filters in cigarettes quickly become saturated,passing benzene and other harmful chemicals on to theconsumer.

Monday morning’s session was started by Bill Mitch(Stanford University), who presented chlorine and chloraminedisinfection by-products of proteins using LC/MS. Mecha-nisms of reaction were explored. Carsten Prasse (GermanFederal Institute of Hydrology and UC-Berkeley) followedwith a talk on unraveling the fate of pharmaceuticals in theurban water cycle, focusing on the fate of Tamiflu (oseltamivir)and acyclovir in wastewater treatment. Imma Ferrer (Univer-sity of Colorado) followed with an excellent talk on accuratemass tools for the identification of environmental contaminantsusing LC/Q-TOF-MS. A new drug, lamotrigine, was identifiedin this way. Ed Furlong (USGS) discussed the role of massspectrometry techniques in national scale monitoring pro-grams, including a national landfill leachate study, whichshowed higher levels of pharmaceuticals and other contami-nants than in traditional wastewater.

Three poster highlights followed, with Yichao Qian(University of Alberta) presenting work on UV removal ofhalobenzoquinones in drinking water, Viorica Lopez-Avila(Agilent) presenting work on the identification of phosphateesters in air samples from the Great Lakes using GC/Q-TOF-MS and a soft ionization source, and Avinash Dalmia(Perkin Elmer) presenting work on analyzing naphthenicacids in oil sands process water using LC-TOF-MS.

Chris Gill opened Monday afternoon’s sessions with hisamazing mobileMIMSmeasurements of urban air, in which hewas able to drive around a city and discover where the hot spotswere. Several contaminants could be measured, includingbiphenyl down to 98 ppt. New developments were discussed,including thermally assisted MIMS (for heavier, less volatilecontaminants) and condensed acceptor phase (CP)-MIMS,which had better performance than ESI-MIMS for estrone.André Schreiber (AB SCIEX) presented new detectionmethods for emerging contaminants using LC-MS/MS anddifferential mobility separation. One particularly interestingfind involving the detection of high levels of cocaine in waterwas from a Holy Water sample taken inside a church in Rome(presumably from continual inputs from hands and concentra-tion occurring over time). Algal toxins were the focus of anexcellent talk from Carrie Guo (Metropolitan Water District ofSouthern California). Comparison between ELISAs and LC/MS/MS methods was made.

X. Li and S. Richardson: 29th ASMS Asilomar Conference on Mass Spectrometry 1091

Mike Thurman (University of Colorado) presentedaccurate mass analysis of ethoxylated surfactants in hydrau-lic fracturing water using Kendrick mass defects. Up to 500compounds could be identified in only a few seconds, and alibrary could be built based on Kendrick lists. Marc Engel(FDACS Food Safety) discussed regional trends andtendencies of heavy metal concentrations in the Americaoyster, and Andrew Ottens (Virginia Commonwealth Uni-versity) presented data on the perturbation of brain devel-opment from second hand smoke. Four poster highlightsfollowed: Allison Balloon (University of Wisconsin), whospoke about the GC/quadrupole-Orbitrap; Michael Gross(University of Buffalo), who spoke about the metabolism ofa brominated flame retardant to toxic metabolites, MaryBedner (NIST), who spoke about reaction pathways ofpharmaceuticals in wastewater treatment, and DouglasStevens (Waters Corp.), who spoke about combined chargeexchange-APCI and tandem MS/MS applications for envi-ronmental analysis.

A final keynote talk was given by Joel Pedersen (UniversityofWisconsin), who gave a compelling (if somewhat scary) talkon the environmental fate and disease transmission of prions.Prions are responsible for mad cow disease in cattle, scrapie in

sheep and goats, and chronic wasting disease (in deer), and Joeldiscussed uptake in plants and potential transmission tohumans, along with techniques used for their detection. Finally,Susan Richardson closed the conference with a lighter talk on“Fossils and Rocks: A Little Science and a Lot of Fun,”detailing her family fossil and rock expeditions through theyears, and bringing examples to give away in a final drawing,which was fun and very well received.

This was the first environmental Asilomar Conference in12 years and was much appreciated by the environmental massspectrometry community, several of whom expressed that thiswas the best scientific conference they had ever attended. Thescientific and friendly exchanges resulted in a number of futureresearch collaborations for the attendees. We believe the hugesuccess of this conference was due to the high caliber of invitedspeakers who graciously agreed to attend, along with theinterdisciplinary research presented, the excellent organizationby Jennifer Watson and ASMS, and the beautiful setting ofAsilomar, which helps to foster a comradery among attendeesand free sharing of scientific information. Xing-Fang Li andSusan Richardson would like to express their gratitude to theAsilomar Committee and to ASMS for allowing us to have anenvironmental focus at Asilomar once again.

1092 X. Li and S. Richardson: 29th ASMS Asilomar Conference on Mass Spectrometry