By Rebecca Smith

As the Pickering team mentioned in our last newsletter, we were humming with anticipation in the lead-up to attending Pittcon 2023.  The conference returned to in-person in March for the first time, post-pandemic, and we jumped at the chance to get to Philadelphia.  Kevin McKeown, David Mazawa and I happily hopped on two planes and a train for the trek and immersed ourselves in a week of reuniting with longtime customers and meeting new attendees as well. 

Although many of our international distributors were still unable to travel, we did have a good showing of North, Central and South American dealers arrive for meetings and to enjoy the expo.  For some of these relationships, this is the first time Kevin was able to actually shake hands and say “hi!”  He’s been Pickering’s Sales Manager for coming up on three years this November; that’s a long time to maintain new relationships virtually.  The meetings were all fantastic!  We appreciated each of our resellers who made the trip and hope to enjoy the mutual benefits of our ongoing partnerships.

Kevin has been in the industry a long time, and he’s got a huge network of existing relationships to tend to as well.  David and I went with him to our first Independent Laboratory Distributors Association (ILDA) reception, but he’s been an active participant for over a decade.  It was good fun (and food) for sure!

As with every exhibitor, we brought plenty of giveaways and literature for attendees to enjoy (and hopefully learn more about Pickering).  This year, our 40^th anniversary insulated/reusable shopping bags were a big hit!  It was so nice to celebrate our belated anniversary in Philadelphia with the entire expo, now that we’ve moved back to a live conference environment.  The bags are right in theme our other big 40^th anniversary activities, including our timeline.  If you missed seeing this last year, it’s well worth a read!  We’ve been involved in a lot of great stuff over the last four decades.

In another of our traditional Pittcon celebrations, we also raffled several prizes.  These gadgets are often products associated with our Product Testing Solutions (PTS) line, which are used in consumer product testing and development.  It’s our small way of thanking both our PTS customers and our Pittcon booth visitors!

This year, we’d like to congratulate winners Jim Walla from Evonik, and Julio Ogedra (pictured below) from the University of Central Florida.  We hope they both enjoy their prizes!

By: Kevin McKeown

In May, Pickering Labs had a chance to exhibit at the LAPRW – Latin America Pesticide Residue Workshop –  in Panama City, Panama!  This was made possible by an invitation from one of our Central American dealers, Analytical Technologies, and we are very grateful for the partnership (and translation services, even though Technical Support Manager David Mazawa’s Spanish is passable!).  Our booth was shared with other companies that Analytical Technologies represents: Agilent and Gerstel. 

The show consisted of many hot topics in the Pesticide Residue testing world, including the continued importance of Glyphosate monitoring.  Pickering Labs has been a leader in Glyphosate/Carbamate analysis for over 30 years, so it certainly gave us a lot to talk about with the attendees!  Some of the more interesting requests that we were asked about were Glyphosate in Honey and in Tomato Leaves.  Using HPLC + Post-Column is not only a long-standing, tried and true way of doing this analysis, but is also completely matrix-independent: making a tricky substance like honey a perfect candidate for our instrumentation.

What would a trip to Panama be without a trip to the canal?!  David and I had a VERY early Sunday morning wakeup call so that we could squeeze in some sightseeing, which included a bicycle tour around “old town” Panama City, where we learned a lot about Manuel Noriega and the completed history of Panama.  The organizing committee for LAPRW put together a wonderful show, which included a performance of traditional dancing, in classical dress, by some of the LAPRW volunteers (truly a full-service group!).  I would be remised if we did not get the attached picture with a pair of the dancers in front of our beautifully-appointed booth.

Pickering Laboratories, Inc. has recently become aware of a concerning issue in regards to copycatting of our products, both Post-Column and PTS (artificial body fluids). We have heard from our international distribution partners that there are inferior manufacturers who are actively looking to misrepresent their products as being produced by Pickering Laboratories, Inc. Some of their tactics include: mimicking our label, copying our company logo and most-brazenly stating that their company has acquired Pickering Labs, Inc.

None of these claims are accurate. In addition, these ‘spoofed’ products are not actually manufactured to the same formulations, nor are they produced with the same quality as Pickering Labs authentic products.

Our authorized dealers in each country can be found at the following website:

https://www.pickeringlabs.com/support/distributor-list/
In addition to being listed on our website, you can request an “Authorized Distributor Certificate” or a “Letter of Authorization” from any dealer to ensure that you are truly getting products manufactured by Pickering Labs.

We encourage any purchases to solely be made through distributors listed on the above link and we would like to thank our partners for bringing this to our attention.

If you, as an international customer or end user of Pickering Labs products, have any hesitancy at all in regards to a purchase we encourage you to contact us directly at: sales@pickeringlabs.com or support@pickeringlabs.com. We will be happy to answer any questions or review a possible source for authenticity.

By: Saji George

The paralytic shellfish toxins (PSTS) are a group of secondary metabolites (biotoxins) deposited in bivalve shellfish by dinoflagelates. Dinoflagelates blooms are seasonal, occurring during warm months. Since it is unpredictable whether an infestation will occur, the shellfish population should be regularly monitored for toxins. Ingestion of contaminated shellfish can lead to paralytic shellfish poisoning; a life-threatening illness.

Mouse bioassay (MBA) was the official method of AOAC International, but the drawbacks associated with this method have led to exploration of chemical methods. The most common HPLC post-column method is to oxidize the separated toxins under alkaline conditions to a fluorescent compound. Sullivan et al. used this method to determine the gonyautoxins 1-6 (GTX1-6), saxitoxin (STX) and neosaxitoxin (neoSTX) but not the N-sulfocarbamoyl-11-hydroxysulfate toxins (C1-C4). Oshima et al. modified this method to determine the 3 toxin groups separately using isocratic elution with 3 different mobile phases. An improved method using post-column oxidation (PCOX) followed by fluorescence detection was developed by Canadian Food inspection Agency (CFIA) in collaboration with National Research Council Canada (CNRC) has led to a shorter analysis time to determine the 3 groups of toxins using step gradient and a switching valve.

This method offers a high throughput alternative to live animal testing or lengthy instrumental methods currently acceptable for regulatory testing. All MBA analyses for PSTs were eliminated in CFIA laboratories when the PCOX method was granted Official Method of Analysis (OMA), First Action status in April, 2011, and the PCOX method was considered a quantitative, regulatory method, without the need for MBA confirmation of results. The PCOX method was promoted to AOAC OMA 2011.02, Final Action status in 2013.

For further reading/information here’s a very helpful link to a video from one of our customers, The Sitka Tribe of Alaska , which does a great job walking through the collection/testing process.  If you are interested, Pickering Labs has created our own PSP method utilizing our Post-Column instrumentation.

By: Jim Murphy and Rebecca Smith (with contributions from Kevin and David)

Our parade of well-wishes for our long-time employees continues as we congratulate our friends Saji George and Sareeta Nerkar on their 20 years of service at Pickering Labs.  We can’t speak for the two of them, but on our side, Jim and I have loved every minute of our time with these two chemists!  

Since Saji and Sareeta began working here in 2002, they have each been a big part of Pickering’s many milestones, from the launching of our Vector (2005), Pinnacle (2006) and Onyx (2020) instruments all the way to the earliest advent of our PTS product line (2007).  We are so proud of both women and their many accomplishments, here at the lab and out in the greater scientific community. 

In addition to her daily contributions as our brilliantly organized QA Manager, Saji has also been a driving force behind our emergence as a trusted partner in the AATCC textile-testing world, serving as our main ambassador and lending her technical expertise to that organization’s members.  She has also taken on this role at the WEAR Conference, supporting both smart textiles as well as wearable electronics manufacturers.  On the Post-Column side of our business, she has been part of the development of many analytical methods, most recently for Paralytic Shellfish Toxins and Formaldehyde analysis.

Meanwhile, Sareeta has long been a member of our small but dynamic R&D team.  Her contributions as a Research Chemist (most recently in Cannabinoids, Nitrosamines and Mycotoxins applications) also extend beyond these walls, as Sareeta is an active member of the NACRW.  She has recently expanded her NACRW role to include conference Social Chair in addition to representing Pickering while in attendance.  Sareeta is also a repeat presenter at the Emerald Conference and this year, she’ll be showcasing a poster at the Cannabis Science Conference. 

A long-time resident of the Bay Area, Saji raised her two boys (Isaac and Thomas) with her husband George in Palo Alto and while living there became great friends with Judy Pickering, the wife of our late founder Michael Pickering.  Since her two boys have “flown the coop”, Saji and George have relocated back to her beloved Monterey Peninsula and, yes, she does make the drive up to our office in Mountain View daily (she’s very fond of audiobooks!).  Saji’s favorite things include tennis and gardening and she’ll gladly tell you about her trip to Wimbledon, just ask!

Sareeta and her husband Nitin have also raised two children into adulthood.  Over the years, her daughters Pooja and Revati have attended several Pickering luncheons.  And Pooja even recently accompanied Sareeta to Rebecca’s wedding!  Talk about family. 😊 When she’s not here at work, Sareeta enjoys the chemistry of cooking.  Finding joy in the overlaps between laboratory and kitchen is a hobby she shared with Michael Pickering, as you might recall from newsletter articles in the past.  Sareeta has shared her love of cooking with her daughters and husband, but these days she also shares a little taste here and there with her dog, Leo!

Jim and I appreciate both of these awesome chemists so much and we cannot thank them enough for their contributions during 20 years here at Pickering.  Congratulations again to Sareeta and Saji!  Cheers!

By: Kevin McKeown

At Pickering Labs we have always been very interested in the applications of our customers.  Our Artificial Body Fluids solutions have been used in cutting-edge COVID research, during early-stage development of some of the coolest tech gadgets, ensuring proper functionality of medical implants and many, many more novel purposes.  We wanted to highlight another use that we found particularly compelling.

Recently we were contacted by Margaret E. Hitt from Herbert Henry Dow High School in Midland, Michigan with a request for our Artificial Eccrine Perspiration.  Margaret is working on a cortisol biosensor to objectively test stress for astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) and was in need of a sweat solution that closely mimicked actual human sweat, a very neat application!  This led us to look further into, and learn about, a wonderful program that is forward-looking and just plain cool: Dow High Space Farmers

Here’s a description of the program, and the scientific team, from their website:

 “An energetic group of Michigan students from Midland’s Dow High School, who are also Space Botany Researchers and growing future scientists in STEM.   We are part of NASA-sponsored programs, “Growing Beyond Earth” and “NASA HUNCH” (High School Students United with NASA to Create Hardware).

We stay in close touch with NASA scientists, conducting space botany research based on the rigorous procedures, while also keeping touch with our creative and critical-thinking side through student-proposed original research and experimentation.  We present our research to NASA scientists and administrators in the GBE Research Sympoisum, International Space Station Research & Development Conference, and Michigan Space Grant Consortium Conference. 

As someone who has long-struggled to keep my tomato and cucumber plants alive, this is just mind-blowing to me that the Dow High Space Farmers are researching ways to grow in space!  I mistakenly thought that Matt Damon’s farming scene from “The Martian” was pure science-fiction, but it seems like the youth of H.H. Dow High School are turning this into a reality.  Please visit their site if you’d like to learn more about this fascinating program.

By: Kevin McKeown

After what seems like a decade, but in reality is only 3 years, Pickering Labs is happy to FINALLY be back at exhibiting at Pittcon!  This year’s show will be in Philadelphia from March 20^th to March 22^nd.

We will be at Booth 2138 and in attendance will be Rebecca Smith, David Mazawa and Kevin McKeown.  If you, or anyone from your company, plan on attending we encourage you to stop by and say hello.  We will have daily giveaways and prizes include Apple Airpods and an Amazon Kindle Paperwhite!  Also displayed at our booth will be one of our Onyx instruments, some samples of our Artificial Body Fluid (PTS) solutions and a myriad of other literature for you to peruse.

We look forward to seeing all of our customers, international dealers and old friends that we’ve only been able to converse with over video conference for the past few years.  We wish everyone who’s attending safe travels and cannot wait to see you there!