Well, it's about that time to start thinking about the upcoming 24th annual MCF symposium to be held on Tuesday May 13 through Thursday May 15, 2003. We are busy making plans for all the festivities, from the always popular classes on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, to the vendor seminars and exhibits Wednesday afternoon, to the big finale of focus speakers, exhibits, posters, and prize drawing on thursday. We hope you will be able to join us; mark your calendars now!

This year in addition to the three most popular courses, MCF will also be offering a new course - Chromatographic Analysis of Foods and Flavors. Be sure to keep an eye out for registration forms in upcoming MCF newsletters. Classes always fill up fast, so be sure to get your registration in as soon as possible!

Vendor exhibits and presentations begin after the classes end Wednesday at noon. Watch for abstracts from all of the vendors who intend to give a presentation. This will make it simple to decide which seminar to attend. There have been some fantastic topics in the past, and there are sure to be some great ones this year that you simply cannot pass up! Also, watch your mail for information about these seminars from the vendors themselves.

While you are browsing the exhibits and attending the presentations, make sure you stick around for the reception starting around 3:00. Appetizers, beer, and wine will be served. The Earl Brown Heritage Center always has a huge variety of tasty items.

On Thursday, which is the actual Symposium day, there will be the Keynote Address and several Focus speakers. The Symposium Committee is working diligently to prepare a full slate of interesting papers and posters.

Other events scheduled for that day include the Undergraduate Award presentation, Palmer Award presentation, exhibits, posters, and of course, the prize drawing. For more information, make sure to visit MCF web page at www.minnchrom.org. The web page is kept up to date, and will provide you with all of the information you need to know about the upcoming Symposium. Also, watch the MCF newsletter for further symposium updates as they become available. The Symposium Committee solicits your help to make this year's event a grand success. MCF will provide the best selection of talks, very useful and informative vendor exhibits, and good food available in the Midwest, and all you have to do is how up!

MCF is now accepting abstracts for 24th Annual MCF Spring Symposium to be held on Thursday, May 15, 2003.

Submit abstracts on-line via the MCF web page (www.minnchrom.org) (select Symposium Info then Submit Abstract)

Chromatographic Analysis of Foods and Flavors - Becky Wittrig (Restek)

Mass Spectral Interpretation - Phil Lyon and Stacy Hanson (3M)

Practical Advice for Developing Better GC Methods - Cameron George and Darren Decker (Agilent)

Troubleshooting HPLC Systems - John Dolan (LC Resources)

Registration Deadline for all courses is April 30, 2003. Visit the MCF website for registration details or watch for special mailings with course details!

"Introductory Liquid Chromatography"

Review of the MCF course, by John Baker

The MCF organized short course entitled Introductory Liquid Chromatography was held at the Earle Brown Continuing Education center on October 22-24, 2002. Again this year, the course instructors were Dr. David Johnson, a Sr. Research Supervisor at 3M Corporate Laboratories, and Dr. Larry Felice, the Director of Research & Development at MEDTOX Laboratories. Both instructors used their unique teaching styles to bring the students from novice chromatographers to "highly trained professionals."

The first day of the course began with an overview of chromatographic theory which then led into topics specifically relevant to HPLC such as column chemistry, bonded phases, solvent systems etc. and how each of these affects the quality of the chromatography. On the second day of the course, the students were encouraged to test what they learned from day 1 with hands on HPLC experience. Thanks to the assistance of the 6 vendors, Agilent, Waters, ChromTech, Perkin-Elmer, Shimadzu and Beckman, the,students were able to observe the effect that various solvent systems had on the separation of a five-component mixture of substituted benzenes. Later in the day half of the class was given a three-component mixture of anti-inflammatory drugs, while the other half was given a mixture of three drugs commonly found in cold medications. After each group optimized the separation of their respective drug mixture, they then used this information to identify the compounds in an "unknown" drug sample. The final day of the short course reviewed the results from the previous day's efforts, and then ended after covering important topics such as sample preparation, detectors, and troubleshooting.

This popular course was filled early again this year with 24 students. Fortunately, it will be offered in October of 2003, as the appeal of this course appears to be widespread. MCF would like to extend its gratitude to the teachers and vendors who made this course a success!

I am sure you all of you are back at work in full force after a very happy holiday season. On behalf of the MCF Board, I wish you all A Very HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!

We are entering 2003 with lot of apprehensions and uncertainties- slow economy, possibility of war, newly elected officials - did I leave anything out? It is hard to predict how 2003 will turn out. One thing is certain! MCF will continue to be a viable organization meeting the needs of its members. You have already seen the work being done diligently by the Spring Symposium Committee through the Symposium Committee Chair's article on the front page of this newsletter.

As I look back in 2002, the newsletter did not have any guest columns. I hope we can do better this year. This is a great medium to publish some review articles or introduce to the members of MCF that great separation technique you have been working on. If you happen to come across good articles (reviews included) on HPLC, GC, CE or for that matter any unique sample preparation technique, please drop me a line and I will definitely find room for it in the newsletter. I encourage all our readers to consider writing guest columns- they could be meeting reviews or course reviews.

Keep up the good work and stay in touch.

Ward Swanson, Past President MCF

The Minnesota Chromatography Forum (MCF) is seeking nominations for the Palmer Award to be presented at the 2003 Spring Symposium. The Palmer Award has been given out by the MCF for the past 22 years. The award recognizes individuals for their contributions to the art and science of chromatography. The award can also be given to an individual for his or her service to the MCF or the chromatography community. Past recipients have included internationally recognized chromatographers as well as long-term MCF volunteers. For a listing of the past recipients of the Palmer Award please visit the MCF web site at www.minnchrom.org. A committee chaired by the MCF Past President reads and discusses all individuals nominated for the award, and then selects a winner. The Past President of the MCF heads the committee. The nomination form can be found on the MCF web site at www.minnchrom.org.