Contributed by Nicolas Young and Heather Desaire
The 34th Asilomar Conference on Mass Spectrometry, organized by Nicolas Young (Baylor College of Medicine) and Heather Desaire (University of Kansas), was held on November 2-6, 2018 at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, CA. The topic of the conference was “Quantitative Analysis of Posttranslational Modifications by Mass Spectrometry”. The 21 invited talks, 6 “hot topic” talks, and 20 poster presentations provoked many questions and vigorous debate amongst the particularly engaged attendees of about 90 researchers. The conference was kept on time by Po-Po the monkey and at least one attendee had their tie cut for overdressing to attend this casual conference at such a beautiful destination. The weather was outstandingly sunny and comfortable, which allowed for a bonfire finale complete with s’mores and a ceremonial sacrifice and roasting of the conference pumpkin.