Pittsburgh, PA, March 29, 2012 - The Pittcon 2012 Organizing Committee is pleased to announce that this year's conference and exposition for laboratory science attracted15,754 attendees (conferees and exhibitor personnel) to the annual event, which was held in Orlando, Florida, March 11-15. Twenty-nine percent of the conferees were from 89 countries outside the United States. A detailed summary of attendance is available at www.pittcon.org.

Pittcon 2012 President Jon Peace commented, "In a time where economic changes, increased mergers and acquisitions, and rising travel costs have a substantial impact on conferences, attendees still consider Pittcon to be a most valuable educational and networking resource for the global scientific community."

The Exposition included 948 exhibiting companies occupying 1,854 booths showcasing their latest laboratory instrumentation, equipment and services across a broad range of applications and technologies used in laboratory science. There were 191 exhibiting companies (20%) from 28 countries outside of the United States. This year, Pittcon welcomed 119 (12.5%) first time exhibitors and recognized the following returning companies that participated at Sponsorship Level: ABSCIEX, Jasco, Millipore, Sigma-Aldrich, Shimadzu, and Thermo Fisher Scientific.

The comprehensive Technical Program included more than 2,000 individual presentations distributed among Invited Symposia, Organized Contributed Sessions, Achievement Awards, Workshops, and Poster presentations. More than 100 invited speakers addressed topics of global interest, including alternative and sustainable energy, homeland security, food and drug safety, environmental issues, new materials development, and bioanalytical techniques. Approximately 1,400 people attended the Plenary Lecture presented by R. Graham Cooks, and Steven Benner delivered the Capstone Lecture to an audience of 700.

The 2012 Short Course program offered 95 courses (16 of which were new) and drew approximately 1,400 registrants which was a 16% increase over 2011 attendance.

The Pittcon Employment Bureau registered 143 employers, 512 candidates, 444 positions, and 455 interviews for the week.