Happy 25^th Work Anniversary to Severo!!

By Christopher Nguyen

Dedication to one’s role is exemplified by the staff member we celebrated this summer. Severo Muñoz has been with Pickering Laboratories since 1999 and he is one of the most seasoned veterans on our team. Severo is “The Guy” in Pickering’s shipping department, and he’s been responsible for our shipping and receiving for 25 strong years.

As days turned into months, and months turned into years, Severo has been the living-breathing embodiment of dedication and hard work. He is respected by his colleagues for the attitude he brings to work each day and he is a role model for many in the lab. He is a respected father, coworker and friend.

From Pickering’s long-standing history of sending specialty instruments around the globe, to IATA regulations for shipping dangerous goods, Severo is truly an expert in these fields and everything in between. He is an open book of knowledge for those who are willing to ask, and trust us when we say, he is easy to ask. Dependable and approachable, Severo is an overall great human being. Myself and the Pickering team wanted to shine a spotlight on you, Severo. You deserve it!

I would also like to mention that he drives a 400 horse power Charger to the lab! The way he maintains his vehicle is reflective of his work at Pickering – impeccable.

Thank you for your 25 years of continued service, Mr. Muñoz!

Past and Upcoming Tradeshows – Fall 2024

By: Kevin McKeown

Hot off the heels of AOAC International and the Wearable Technologies conferences, Pickering Labs is going to have a busy exhibition schedule for the next few months!  And I’m here to report that we’re absolutely enjoying being on the road and getting the chance to catch up with customers.

First, let’s recap a few recent tradeshows:

• Traveling to Baltimore, our Technical Support Manager, David Mazawa, and Senior Research Chemist, Dr. Maria Ofitserova, recently attended the AOAC International Conference. Maryland’s famous crabcakes set the scene for our introduction of conveniently packaged mobile phase and reagent consumables for the post-column derivatization HPLC method for PSP/PCOX (Paralytic Shellfish Toxins) analysis.

As warmer ocean temperatures continue to impact global fisheries, we support labs that are ramping up analytical testing to eliminate the use of the traditional Mouse Bioassay for testing Paralytic Shellfish Poisons in a variety of mussels and clams.

• David, along with President, Rebecca Smith, were first-time attendees and exhibitors at the Wearable Technologies conference: https://wearable-technologies.com/events/wt-wearable-technologies-conference-2024-usa

At this show, we focused on our Product Testing Solutions (aka Artificial Body Fluids), which are used to test various consumer products for quality and safety. We learned a great deal about the growing Wearable Technologies market and subcategories of wearables such as “Hearables”, a hot topic due to the introduction of over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids. It is clear that Wearables will continue to rapidly evolve and play an important role in the healthcare industry. This conference had the added advantage of being the very first show in over 40 years that was walking distance from Pickering’s HQ in Mountain View; hosted at the super cool Computer History Museum!

Next up for our world travelers:

• In early October, Sales Manager, Kevin McKeown, will be traveling to beautiful Savannah, Georgia for the Textile Discovery Summit: https://www.aatcc.org/summit/

This is always a show that we look forward to, as it gives us the opportunity to meet with both existing and new customers in the textile market.  This year’s highlights will include our new Synthetic Blood solutions (perfect for stain and penetration testing!) and tons of conversation about colorfastness.

• In late October, Kevin and Maria will be headed up to Portland, Maine for our first attendance and sponsoring of the 12^th Annual Symposium on Harmful Algae: https://neiwpcc.org/events/ushab12/ .

The primary topic here for Pickering will be our capabilities around Shellfish/PCOX testing methodology.  We have the instrumentation (and now consumables!) that enables laboratories to test rapidly and confidently for the presence of Toxins in Shellfish, with the added bonus that no mice will be harmed in the process!

If you are attending either conference, or in the area, please let us know!  We would be happy to discuss our new products with you, or just catch up on how your business has been in 2024.

Synthetic Blood In Action

By: Kevin McKeown

Since our introduction of Synthetic Blood solutions, we have been keenly interested in learning about our customers and their various use cases.  From stain resistance to artificial heart valve testing, we have heard about a lot of really cool applications.  And as this new product continues to expand, hopefully we’ll have more stories like this one to tell!

One of our Synthetic Blood customers is Sameer Patel from the Detmold Group in Australia.  Sameer is a Laboratory Technician and he’s using our Synthetic Blood for penetration testing on PPE (Personal Protective Equipment).  This technique uses specially-designed Blood Splatter equipment that puts on quite a show!  Our Synthetic Blood is loaded into the instrument and ejected at a high velocity onto the surgical mask, gown, or other PPE, for the purpose of emulating a real-life situation.  The piece of PPE is then judged on whether or not it meets the permeability requirements of the particular ASTM testing method that the customer is following.  In Sameer’s case, he is using our Synthetic Blood that conforms to ASTM F1862 and ASTM F1670M.

Sameer’s has been kind enough to share some photos of our Synthetic Blood In-Action:

Quiz #44 – Amino Acids Noisy Baseline

In this amino acids chromatogram per European Pharmacopeia (method abstract here), you will see a noisy baseline with repetitive sinusoidal noise pattern (green and blue). What is contributing to this baseline noise?

Submit your answers to rsmith@pickeringlabs.com by March 15, 2024.

Announcing the winners of our previous quiz, Chromatography Quiz #43 – Polyether Antibiotics

Pickering Laboratories would like to congratulate the winners for our previous newsletter’s Chromatography Quiz #42: Josiah Hakala from Minnesota Department of Health, Narjes Ghafoori from Los Angeles County Public Health Laboratory, and Thomas Schneider from SCWA. 

In celebration of our polyether antibiotics method and decades-long relationship supporting the animal feed industry, our quiz winners will each soon be receiving: a beautiful custom cutting board, designed and made by family-owned Trujillo Ranch and sold via Etsy! 

This personalized cherry wood cutting board with a highland cow is 11 x 17 and approximately an inch thick.

Congratulations to our quiz winners!  Thank you all for your submissions!

Chromatography Quiz #43 Solution:

Polyether Antibiotics are commonly used for preventing coccidiosis and other infections in poultry and for improving feed efficiency for beef cattle and swine. The use of Polyether Antibiotics is strictly regulated, with only specific ionophores approved for use in feeds intended for different animals.

Analysis of Polyether Antibiotics by HPLC with post-column derivatization and UV/Vis detection has been proven to successfully identify and quantify Monensin, Narasin and Salinomycin in medicated feeds, supplements and premixes as well as to determine trace contamination levels in non-medicated feeds.

Post-column derivatization of Polyether Antibiotics is done using highly acidic Vanillin or DMAB reagents. The Onyx PCX derivatization system (Pickering Laboratories, Inc.) has an inert flow path and automated system wash capabilities that make it uniquely suitable for handling corrosive reagents. The two-pump system is recommended to extend reagent stability, but the single-pump system for this application is also available.

Adding a Fluorescence detector to the instrumentation allows for using the same extraction procedure and HPLC conditions to also determine Lasalocid, which doesn’t require post-column derivatization.

The method details can be found on our website here.

Question: What could be contributing to the loss of signal?

Correct answer:

In this case, the loss of signal was due to incorrect plumbing of the post-column system. Our Polyether Antibiotics systems are plumbed so that Reagents 1 and 2 will premix before reacting with the analytes of interest in the heated reaction coil. Both reagents and heat are required to have a sufficient post-column reaction. You can mix reagents 1 and 2 ahead of time and only use one reagent pump to deliver, however, the reagent is unstable. We can extend the stability of the reagent by mixing them “on the fly” in this manner.

Our incorrect plumbing had Reagent 1 mixing with the analytes of interest in the heated reaction coil before it had a chance to mix with Reagent 2, which contains our Vanillin reagent.

The typical flow diagram for the Polyether Antibiotics post-column system is shown here:

Good Chromatogram:

Bad Chromatogram:

Excellent Videos from International Partner: Young In Chromass

By: David Mazawa

Are you in the mood for a quick, visual primer on your favorite post-column instruments and applications from Pickering Laboratories?  Look no further than the links below!

Our dealer in Korea, Young In Chromass, made very helpful and informative YouTube videos that give a great representation on the Post-Column technique and instrumentation, as well as more specifically on the methods for Amino Acid Analysis.  The first video highlights our top-selling Onyx PCX as well as several of our most popular applications.

In the Amino Acids video, you will see a comparison between the Ninhydrin and OPA methods, while also learning the advantages of the Post-Column technique over other methods of Amino Acids Analysis. Perhaps you will come to the same conclusion we have: Post-Column is the easiest, most reproducible technique available!

Young In Chromass has been a trusted international distributor for Pickering Laboratories’ instrumentation and consumables for over 20 years.  We are very thankful for this partnership!  You can visit their website here: https://eng.youngincm.com/

Almost Here: Pittcon 2024!

By: Kevin McKeown

Pittcon 2024 kicks off another year of our conference circuit, and brings with it another opportunity to meet with our customers, partners and international dealers in person!

This year, Pittcon will be held in the beautiful and typically very pleasant San Diego!  It’s the first time in my 15+ years of attending the conference that it has been west of New Orleans, which is a really nice change of pace and will hopefully let some brand-new attendees have the opportunity to see all the latest and greatest from our industry.

Pickering Laboratories will be at Booth # 2321 and we encourage everyone to stop by!  Our all-star booth lineup will include: Rebecca Smith, Maria Ofitserova and Kevin McKeown.  We will have one of our flagship instruments, the Onyx PCX, available to check out.  In addition, we’re debuting beautiful printed copies of the new Product Testing Solutions brochure, which was also written up in this newsletter.

We are taking advantage of hourly flights between the Bay Area and San Diego to additionally invite our Purchasing Agent and Production Manager down for a day to walk the expo and meet with some of our suppliers and vendor partners!  Both Kristina Wilkinson and Christopher Nguyen will be in San Diego on Tuesday 2/27, so reach out via email or call us if you’d like to arrange a meeting!  Another good chance to put a face to the name of some longtime collaborators.

Stop by and pick up some of our fun Pickering Labs branded giveaways, including sunscreen(!) that will undoubtedly drive away the atmospheric river that has parked itself over Southern California this week.

Safe travels and see you in San Diego!

New Employee Spotlight – Kimberly Genet

By: Kevin McKeown

I bet you thought that we were done with new employees, but you were mistaken!  Pickering Laboratories is happy to introduce ANOTHER new member to our team: Kimberly Genet!

Kim joined us in early September 2023, stepping into her role as a Customer Service Representative.  I have no doubt that some of you reading this newsletter may have already had a chance to communicate and work with Kim in the past months.  As an experienced CSR, she was able to get up to speed quickly and start impacting our customers’ experiences almost immediately! 

Outside of work, Kim enjoys listening to audiobooks, particularly memoirs and books on personal development.  Kim has three children and loves going to live concerts with them.  She also practices yoga and paints in her spare time.

Kim is originally from O’ahu in Hawaii and is very proud her heritage.  Maybe next time our Technical Manager, David Mazawa, is on the island for one of his yearly service calls, he can get some local food recommendations?!

Kim always has a smile on her face (which is noticeable even through the phone or keyboard!) and we are very lucky to have her joining us. 

Happy to have you on the team, Kim!!