The 130th Meeting of AOAC International was held in Dallas, Texas from September 18-21, 2016. Pickering Laboratories is a long time corporate sponsor and very active participant in the expert panels and laboratory collaboration groups that characterize the spirit of the AOAC members.  Maria Ofitserova attended to present our validated post-column derivatization method for Theanine Analysis in Tea, Dietary Ingredients and Supplements, and her Monday morning session drew a large audience of interested attendees. This Theanine method was approved as AOAC First Action Official Method 2016.10 in August 2016 and has just been published together with the Single-Laboratory Validation results in the November-December issue of Journal of AOAC International.

Pickering continued to be closely involved in AOAC Standards development work by participating in several Stakeholders Panels. As a member of the SPIFAN Expert Review Panel (ERP), Maria attended the meeting and focused on reviewing candidate methods for nutrients and trace elements in infant formula and adult nutritionals. The ERP discussed methods for B vitamins, Carotenoids, fructants and galacto-oligosaccharides. She also attended the meeting of Stakeholder Panel for Dietary Supplements (SPDS), where three new working groups were launched! These working groups are tasked with developing Standard Method Performance Requirement for the analysis of free amino acids, vitamins K1 and K2 as well as active compounds in ginger.  

Among the new application notes we introduced at the show was the updated Application Note MA211 Glyphosate Analysis in Foods, which generated interest for a number of attendees.  Please read our Glyphosate testing update in this newsletter to find out more!