By: Kevin McKeown
After an exceptionally snowy last few months on the East Coast and a wet and rainy season on the West Coast, I bet you cannot wait: it’s time for the (late) Winter 2026 edition of the Pickering Laboratories newsletter, Retention Times!
In this issue, we’ll share fun staff news and celebrations while also mixing in our usual blend of product updates from both the Post-Column and PTS/Artificial Body Fluids product lines.
First, we kick things off with an announcement about our next exhibition at Analytica. We will be teaming up with our UK/EU PTS dealer, EssLab, and will be in Hall B1, Booth 333A. Come by and say hi to Rebecca, Kevin, and the EssLab team!
Next, we celebrate our dear colleague Maria’s 25th anniversary! Dr. Maria Ofitserova is a treasured member of our team, and many of you have had the opportunity to benefit from her vast wealth of knowledge on both Post-Column and Artificial Body Fluids topics and applications.
Speaking of Maria, she is introducing a new product: Fluorescamine. This new product is used in conjunction with a growing application area for Post-Column analysis—peptides. With GLP-1s all over the news, we wanted to join the action and provide our customers with another option for sourcing their method-specific consumables.
If you thought we’d make it through a newsletter without mentioning shellfish, I’m sorry to disappoint! In our PSP Landing Page, we showcase the newest resource added to our website. There you’ll be able to find method abstracts, brochures, and other helpful materials if you are—or are considering—getting your lab ready for PTOX testing. Spring is right around the corner, and the water will soon be heating up!
Finally, we highlight a paper in which our products were used for sweat cortisol monitoring. We’ve had a great time combing through our citations, but a recent one really stood out. The fact that it was published in Nature initially caught our attention, as it is such a prominent publication—but the study itself is fascinating, tackling a problem many of us experience: jet lag.
But wait, there’s more! We couldn’t publish a newsletter without our very popular Chromatography Quiz, so put on your thinking caps and see if you can figure out why David’s customer is experiencing a Valve Lost Error. Send in your answers for a chance to win a fabulous prize!
