After the 2019 CE-Forum

December 11-12 the 2019 CE-Forum took place  at the Agilent Technologies Campus in Waldbronn, Germany. Dr. Jens Meixner has arranged the event and acted as  host and chairman in this issue of the CE-Forum. All on-site expenses were covered by Agilent Technologies. A tour of the Agilent Capillary Electrophoresis manufacturing facilities was part of the program.

About 30 participants representing the workgroup (WG) Neusüß (Aalen University), WG Wätzig (Technical University Braunschweig), and WG Huhn (Tübingen University) the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -Prüfung (Berlin), and the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (Berghausen) participated besides representatives from the pharmaceutical industry in Basel and from the WG Gãs, Charles University of Prague.

Details on the scientific program can be taken from this page in this web. The titles of all contributions are linked to the submitted abstracts for reference. 11 orals were delivered from the research groups. The oral program concluded with keynote presentations by Prof. Hermann Wätzig on Affinity CE and Dr. Jana Steflova, Agilent Technologies and Charles University of Prague who explained the usage of public domain CE simulation software Peakmaster and Simul and further developments.

For flash presentations of posters, a new approach was used. All poster authors were asked to explain her/his poster in 3-4 minutes to a small group of participants in front of her/his actual poster. Towards this goal, the posters were divided into three groups. The remaining participants were also divided into three groups which walked the posters. In consequence the poster authors explained their poster 3 times. All participants felt this was an effective way to communicate and discus a poster content with the author. A minor disadvantage is that the poster authors themselves could not listen to the explanations by other authors. On the other hand, the posters remained on display during the forum. In addition, it was felt that each group should have a moderator to make sure that the discussion is dilligent and the groups move timely. 

In the short feedback session there was a broad concensus that the CE-Forum should take place annually preferably in the October-November time frame. A possible venue for the 2020 CE-Forum was proposed. An one and a half day program consiting of orals, tutorial style keynotes, poster presentations, a presentation of the host organisation and an informal together on the evening of the first day was regarded appropriate by all participants.

On behalf of the AK Separation Science of the section of Analytical Chemistry in the GDCh, I like the thank Dr. Meixner and the supporting Agilent staff for hosting and organizing the 2019 CE-Forum.

Below a photo with all participants in the lobby of the Auditorium.