Category Archives: Pittcon

Pittcon

Pittcon 2019: Recap from Philadelphia

By Mike Gottschalk and Maria Ofitserova

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was the site of Pittcon 2019 and Pickering Laboratories was one of over 1,000 exhibitors at the convention center.  As Philadelphia is centered between the New York and Washington D.C., the location brought us close to many of our customers and soon-to-be customers particularly in the pharmaceutical industry. 

Maria, Rebecca and I spent three days exhibiting and providing information on the latest post-column derivatization applications, not to mention showing off all the new products in our Pickering Test Solutions product line.  Our promotional giveaways were a big hit and we greatly underestimated how popular the Pickering yoga mats and exercise balls would be!  Hopefully you stopped by our booth early if you enjoy a good workout while you travel.

We are always pleased by the amount of interested people who stop by to discuss our Product Testing Solutions. We often hear “I didn’t know you made artificial perspiration?”  They will ask us to explain the many types of consumer products that need to be tested with perspiration as well as saliva, urine and other simulated body fluids. You might have noticed that for the last three years, we’ve tried a “sweaty” theme for our show giveaways!  It’s been a great way to promote discussions about product testing and how important it is for almost every industry to evaluate materials with artificial bodily fluids.

One of the new focuses for our post-column research and development has been the growing market for Cannabis related products and the testing of Cannabis.  This field (pun intended?) has shown increasing and sustained interest in cannabinoids and contaminants testing.  There’s good interest in the post-column applications we’ve developed for these matrices, and it reflects the industry demand for verified testing applications.  Highlighted at the show were our applications for the Analysis of Mycotoxins in Cannabis and the Analysis of Cannabinoids in Cannabis and Cannabis-containing Edible Products.

While at Pittcon, we hosted a daily raffle at our booth.  Each expo day, we chose a winner for a pair of Bose “Sleepbuds” – noise cancelling earbuds specifically designed to help the wearer get awesome sleep!  Congratulations to our winners William Collin from General Motors, Brent Hanlin from ALS, and Keith Saroka from the Interboro School District.  This picture really captures how pleased these lucky winners were!

Thank you to everyone who came by the booth to visit with us in Philly this year – we had so much fun chatting with you all!  And of course, if you ever want more information between shows, we’re always adding fun new things to our website and introducing new products in our quarterly newsletter.  Please email support@pickeringlabs.com to discuss any new applications with Maria or another of our amazing chemists!

North American Chemical Workshop, Pittcon

Pittcon News and Notes

By Mike Gottschalk

The 68th Pittcon International for 2018 was hosted in Orlando, Florida which provided a welcome respite from February’s wintery embrace to many a northerner. Beside the welcoming venue, the programs and exhibitors continue to contribute to the leading exhibition for laboratory science and new technology in food safety, life science and emerging markets.

Pickering Laboratories presented the latest method advances in our Post-Column Applications and received significant interest in our recently introduced Product Test Solutions from a diverse audience of conference attendees.

New from Pickering for Pittcon this year was our post-column application for Cannabinoids Analysis in Cannabis Plants and Edibles, Amino Acid Analysis in Foods and Supplements as well as several new formulations of Product Testing Solutions.

We are always surprised at the variety of companies interested in our product testing solutions: credit card manufacturers, tobacco companies, electronics manufacturers, surgical instrumentation companies, materials scientists, pharmaceutical companies, and makers of musical instruments to name a few. These different industries have all found the quality and consistency of Pickering’s product testing solutions to offer the reliability they need for performing product development and ongoing quality assurance testing.

To add to the excitement of our new products, we held daily raffles for an Apple Watch and two Bose Soundsport Pulse headphones. Congratulations to our three winners!

Not only were the winners of the raffle prizes excited, but passersby generated quite a buzz checking out this year’s playful Pickering promotional handouts, including: Fidget Spinners, Emoji Pens, Lab Rulers and Workout Towels. We enjoyed engaging with our visitors and we appreciated those who stopped to learn more about what Pickering Labs offers!

Thank you for visiting our booth at Pittcon!  And if you missed us, our next show is the North American Chemical Residue Workshop (NACRW) in Naples, Florida from July 22 through 25, where you can be sure to see myself and Sareeta Nerkar and pick up some application notes (or another emoji pen)!

 

Pittcon, Pittcon 2017

Pittcon and Presenting Product Testing!

Pickering Laboratories exhibited at the 67th Pittcon annual conference, which was held March 5-9 in Chicago this year. Pittcon is the leading exhibition for laboratory science and new technology in food safety, life science and emerging markets.  As we have for the last 30 years, Pickering Laboratories exhibited as the leader in Post-Column applications and technology.

As perhaps an unexpected addition, we splashed Pittcon with the introduction of our Pickering Test Solutions product line.  The varied audience of Pittcon was ideal for the diverse applications of our product testing solutions and we received a warm reception.  Thank you to everyone who stopped by the booth for more information!

To celebrate our artificial perspiration Pittcon debut, we worked up a sweat by raffling a Fitbit Flex twice daily.  (Congratulations again to the winners of the Fitbits!)  Our sweat themed giveaways of exercise towels and workout headbands made a nice complement to our classic post-column rulers, and overall we felt we informed and entertained our fellow attendees.

As mentioned, the Pickering Test Solutions product line was of active interest to many of the Pittcon attendees. Among the industries interested in these product test solutions were: tobacco, electronics, surgical instruments, materials science, pharmaceutical dissolution testing and others.

Our product testing solutions include:

  • Artificial Perspiration
  • Artificial Saliva
  • Artificial Urine
  • Artificial Sebum
  • Artificial Cerumen

If you don’t see what you need, just ask!  Customer requests for specific regulation or standard formulations of an artificial body fluid often result in new additions to the product line. We also produce numerous proprietary formulations that are custom made for our customers’ in-house needs, which you won’t find in our publicly available catalog.

Our core post-column business is still going strong.  New and highlighted applications included:

  • Theanine in Tea
  • Glyphosate in Foods
  • Carbamates in Foods
  • Formaldehyde
  • Amino Acids in Pharmacopoeia 8.0

Glyphosate testing is a major focus of our research initiatives this year as the activity surrounding Glyphosate worldwide has increased. The application note MA 211 Glyphosate Analysis in Foods  addresses concerns that Glyphosate has been found in the finished food products available to consumers, and corresponding to media attention resulting in the FDA considering testing for Glyphosate in finished foods.

Pickering Laboratories is an active participant in the AOAC method development and has been for many years. Our latest collaboration MA 378 Analysis of L-Theanine in Tea by HPLC with Post-Column Derivatization was approved by the Expert Review Panel as an AOAC First Action Official Method for the analysis of Theanine.  The method can be implemented by laboratories for analysis of a wide range of complex green tea-containing dietary supplements in forms of powders, tablets, tinctures, gelcaps, softgels and capsules. This official method has been published in the Journal of AOAC International.

We always enjoy visiting with our customers, distributors and other Pittcon attendees though the show.  Thank you again for your visits and for your business over the years!

Conference, Pittcon, Product Testing Solutions

Pickering Laboratories presents new products at PITTCON 2017

Chicago, McCormick Convention center, March 5-9. Booth # 2625

Pickering Laboratories will be exhibiting at the 4-day event and meeting with customers and distributors to highlight new applications and products from the Product Testing Solutions and Post-Column Derivatization product lines.

New Post-Column Applications:

  • Theanine
  • Glyphosate in Foods
  • Carbamates in Foods
  • Formaldehyde
  • Amino Acids in Pharmacopoeia 8.0

Our Product Testing Solutions include artificial Body fluids manufactured testing made to official industry protocols:

  • Artificial Perspiration
  • Artificial Saliva
  • Artificial Urine
  • Artificial Sebum 
  • Artificial Cerumen

Also we are announcing our new Artificial Sebum and Sweat Emulsion product!

Twice-a-day raffle to win a Fitbit Flex – come to Booth 2625 and get into the game!

 

Pittcon, Trade Shows

Pittcon 2015

Pittcon photoNew Orleans, 2015 Pittcon Exhibition –  919 exhibitors, 1,690 booths and an estimated 18,000 attendees. Pickering laboratories exhibited to share the latest products and technologies with customers, distributors and partners. There was a lot of attention to this year’s big introduction, the DEXTech Sample Clean-up system for PCBs and Dioxin. Designed to be faster, cleaner and better automated than industry standard processes the DEXTech provides Dioxin and PCB sample Clean-up at significantly lower price per run while also being faster and safer.

The Freestyle automated sample clean-up workstation highlighted the ThermElute system for Aflatoxin sample-Clean up that has a direct connection to the HPLC. Not only are the innovative Aflatoxin immunoaffinity SMART columns economical but they are incredibly fast. Now you can automate the sample clean-up and include the analysis in one setup.

One of the growth areas in the Pittcon show was the growing focus on Food Safety. Pickering laboratories continue to develop applications that focus on food safety and authentication with new methods introduced at Pittcon:

The surprise to many long time Pickering Labs customers is the introduction of the Product Test Solution line of artificial perspiration, saliva and urine. The long history with Post-Column derivatization products continues with the additional product expansion into sample clean-up products and now the products for the Product Testing laboratory market. These products build on our expertise in Amino Acid Analysis and chromatographic grade reagent manufacturing capability. Each product is manufactured in precise compliance with product testing protocols from NIST, ATSM, AATCC and numerous other standards organizations. The reliability and reproducibility of all Pickering Laboratories products is now available to the Product Testing laboratory market.

pickering laboratories, Pittcon

Visit Pickering at Pittcon 2014

We will be displaying our equipment at this year’s Pittcon in Chicago, Illinois from March 3-6, 2014. Be sure to stop by:  Booth 2955

We will have our Pinnacle PCX post-column derivatization instrument on display as well as our Mycotoxin Analysis Products. In addition, we will some new videos to highlight the latest in our Automated Sample Preparation instrument the FREESTYLE SPE system.

Wendy, David and Mike will be in Chicago. Please stop by. We would love to talk with you!
fountain
aflatoxin, Amino Acid Analysis, carbamate, chromatographic specialties, Chromatography, clean-up, eluvac, freestyle, glyphosate, GPC, herbal products, HPLC, immunoaffinity cleanup, lctech, Multi-residue Mycotoxin Analysis, mycotoxin, natural products, natural toxins, New Products, Ninhydrin, ochratoxin, pickering laboratories, pinnacle pcx, Pittcon, post-column derivatization, spe

Pickering Exhibits at Pittcon 2013

This year’s Pittcon was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from March 17-21, 2013.

view of philly from the museum On display were Pinnacle PCX, EluVAC, and a video of the FREESTYLE Automated Sample Preparation Instrument.  The video was a new technique for us, and it was well received.

The video in our booth was a combination of the separate videos for each module of the FREESTYLE Automated Sample Preparation Instrument. You can view the originals here (they are very informative, and we highly recommend them): FREESTYLE VIDEOS

Wendy, Mike and David enjoyed visiting with existing and future customers, as well as our distributors from around the world, including our Canadian distributor, Chromatographic Specialties.

Before the show opened, we had the opportunity to explore the city.  Philadelphia is one of our oldest cities and is full of history and landmarks. Some of this editor’s favorites include Independence Hall and the surrounding neighborhoods, and the Art Museum (see more below).  On this trip, we explored Reading Terminal Market, and sampled that famous cuisine, the Philly Cheese steak Sandwich. I’m told it is not truly a Philly Steak sandwich unless you have it with Cheez Whiz. Any type of real cheese doesn’t count. I made that mistake on my first trip to Philadelphia, and the man behind the counter let me know it!  I wasn’t about to make that mistake again:

philly cheesesteak

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is known for its amazing collection of artwork (viewed on a previous visit), but is also made famous by the scene of Sylvester Stallone running up the stairs in the movie Rocky.  Since the author of this entry happened to be training for a race, she decided that a little cold wasn’t going to stop her. So she put on her iPod (Rocky Theme playing, of course), and ran from the hotel to the top of the steps and back (total distance: about 2.8miles).

view from the bottom

wendy philly top of steps

wendy rockyOn the return to the hotel, I came across a version of the LOVE sculpture, by American Artist Robert Indiana. I always thought it was was much bigger…

love sculpture

 

For those of you interested in learning more about the sculpture, click HERE

If you’re ever in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is definitely worth a visit.

But if you can’t make the trip to Philadelphia, you could also stay home and watch Rocky…