Category Archives: antioxidants

2013 Pickering Laboratories North American Catalog

Our latest Catalog for North America is now available!

Click on the link to download the latest product Catalog from Pickering Laboratories, Inc.

Pickering Catalog: http://pickeringlabs-retentiontimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2013_PickeringLabs_Catalog_NorthAmerica_LowRes.pdf

Inside our catalog you will find a complete product listing for all instruments and consumables we currently have available. From Sample Cleanup to Post-Column Derivatization, to artificial Perspiration and Saliva, we hope you find something you will find useful!

Pickering Laboratories in 2013

By Wendy Rasmussen

In recent years, we have released several new products and applications, and with still more on the horizon, it occurred to me that now would be a great time to summarize the Pickering of today – our mindset and our wide variety of products & applications.

Acai Berries
Acai Berries

No longer are we simply the “Post-Column Company”. We are the “Automated-Sample Antioxidants” company.  Think of us as the new “super fruit.” The Acai berry, or perhaps the new Chia Seeds (incidentally, we do have a post-column application for the identification & quantitation of  Antioxidants in a variety of matrices).

We are still very active, and we as a company plan to be here for many years to come. We are still the company founded on chemistry and a desire to to teach, to spread our technical expertise, to support our customers.

It’s been a few years now since Pickering began distributing and supporting our LCTech Product line.  The products have shown an ever increasing interest here in the US and in Canada (our official Sales Territory for this product line). We are very proud to offer these products and we hope we can develop it further in the future.

Historically, we have provided the back-end of an analysis (post-column derivatization). Nowadays, we can provide the front-end of analysis as well (the sample-cleanup).

In thinking about our product offerings, I realized that a simple list does not effectively show the scope of the products we have to offer in 2013 – primarily because we have a lot of overlap between products and product lines.  We’re not a vertical company in that regard.  I suppose one could say our product offerings are more circular in that many do not fall into a single distinct category.  I am a very visual person, and for me, a Venn diagram and our overall “product scale” really helped to understand and clarify our products:

Venn Diagram of Pickering Laboratories
Venn Diagram of Pickering Laboratories
General "Product Scale" for Pickering Offerings
General “Product Scale” for Pickering Offerings
For those of who like lists, you can find one Here, on Pickering’s website, and on LCTech’s Website

For any Questions, please feel free to contact us:

Pickering Laboratories, Inc.
Mountain View, California
Email: sales@pickeringlabs.com
Phone: (direct) 650-694-6700 or (toll-free) 800-654-3330

 

Image of Acai Berries:  http://acaiberryeducation.com/

Pickering exhibits in Las Vegas

-By Mike Gottschalk

Las Vegas, Nevada – Oct. 1 – 5 was the site of the AOAC international show this year.  Pickering Laboratories participated as usual in this important International event. “We see many of our customers and distributors from all over the world at this show” said Wendy Rasmussen, sales manager Pickering Laboratories. “We get to show our new products and catch up with them with new developments in their business.”

Pickering Laboratories presented Posters of our new applications Chrome VI and Antioxidants in foods. The herbal supplement market is a growing market and with FDA guidance, more concerned with testing for quality in their products. “We continue to develop methods in matrices important to this market including the antioxidants, Aflatoxins, Amino Acids and others”  said Laszlo Torma, technical liaison for Pickering Laboratories.

The AOAC international show enables laboratories and suppliers to be involved in the mission of creating analytical methods for today’s most pressing testing challenges. Pickering Laboratories is an award winning member of several committees and laboratory collaborations to further the goal of analytical excellence.

Las Vegas, Nevada – Nov. 6-9 – Yes! Las Vegas Again! This time for the annual Supply Side West show.  1,800 vendors and 30,000 participants meet to network and explore resources in this, the largest gathering of Herbal supplement suppliers and vendors.  Now that the FDA enforcements are increasing, many Herbal supplement manufacturers are working hard to improve their analytical testing capabilities and Pickering Laboratories is there to help.  “With several methods for herbal supplement testing and extensive experience in the food safety industry we can offer experience and laboratory equipment support to the herbal supplement manufactures” – said Mike Gottschalk, VP Marketing, Pickering Laboratories.

Laszlo Torma enjoys the sights and sounds of “Venice”

Pickering Laboratories is a member of the “American Herbal Products Association” and member of the Laboratories Methods Committee for AHPA. The collaboration with AHPA and the Supply Side West show have provided valuable insight to the needs of the Supplement community and the unique capabilities Pickering Laboratories can offer this market.

Florida Pesticide Residue Workshop

The 49th annual Florida Pesticide Residue Workshop (FPRW) concluded on July 18th in St. Pete Beach, Florida.
It was another successful year for the meeting, which continues to see strong growth in attendance in recent years.
Evening Social: Dinner cruise around Boca Ciega Bay

 

Some major changes are coming to the meeting. Over the last few years, the focus of the meeting as expanded to include not only pesticides but new analytes, such as Mycotoxins, veterinary drugs, and heavy metals. In keeping with this idea, beginning in 2013, the FPRW will become the North American Chemical Residue Workshop.  More news about the changes at the FPRW/NACRW can be found on their website: http://www.flworkshop.com/index.php
Dusk over Boca Ciega Bay

Sample preparation was also a very hot topic this year, and we were happy to present our new Freestyle automated sample clean-up system.  A new website is up and running, showing the highlights of the FREESTYLE. Be sure to check out the Configurator!

Also in keeping with the expanded topics, we presented our poster on Antioxidants in Foods and Natural Supplements. A copy of the application note can be found below. Let us know if you would like a copy, and we would be happy to email it to you.
 Please Click on Abstract to Enlarge
 
  Please Click on Abstract to Enlarge

 

Pickering Products

Mycotoxins: Clean-up Columns, ELISA Kits, Post-Column Derivatization Instruments & Methods, SPE manifolds (manual & automated) for the analysis of:

Aflatoxins
Ochratoxin A
DON
Nivalenol
Fumonisin FB1, FB2
Zearalenone
Ergot Alkaloids

Post-Column Derivatization: Pinnacle PCX, Vector PCX, UVE Photochemical Reactor, Columns, Reagents, Eluants for the analysis of:

Antioxidants
Mycotoxins (individual and multi-residue)
Amino Acids
Biogenic Amines
Paralytic Shellfish Toxin
Polyether Antibiotics
Hexavalent Chromium
Vitamins
Sugars
Nitrate/Nitrite
Bromate
Carbamate Pesticides
Glyphosate Herbicide
NDELA
Formaldehyde

Sample Preparation (clean-up) Instruments:

FREESTYLE for SPE, GPC, online-concentration
FREESTYLE ThermELUTE for Aflatoxin analysis (direct inject onto HPLC)
AcceCLEAN for SPE (incl. Immunoaffinity columns)
EluVAC vacuum manifold for SPE (incl. Immunoaffinity columns)
GPC QUATTRO for manual GPC Cleanup
DECS System for the cleanup of samples for Dioxin analysis

Chemistry Products:

Artificial Perspiration
Artificial Saliva
High Purity Water

Stand-Alone OEM Syringe Pump:

For any applications requiring an inert flow path, volumes up to 70mL, and pressures up to 500psi

For More Information visit:

www.pickeringlabs.com

or email: sales@pickeringlabs.com

Antioxidants Are No Accident

Recently we learned about a paper published by a team in Poland describing their work on the analysis of anti-oxidants. We wanted to share this work with the AHPA community.
Barbara Kusznierewicz and her colleagues from Gdansk University of Technology have developed a method to analyze antioxidants in complex mixtures by HPLC with post-column derivatization and UV/Vis detection. The authors studied three well-known reagents routinely used in colorimetric assays to measure antioxidant activity. They determined that Diammonium 2,2′-azinobis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) (ABTS) and Folin-Ciocalteu reagent (FCR) were best suited for post-column derivatization of antioxidants after they were separated on reversed-phase HPLC column.
Photo from FoodProductDesign.com

Researches optimized HPLC conditions as well as post-column parameters such as concentration of post-column reagent, duration of derivatization reaction and reaction temperature. Trolox and 20 other phenolic compounds were investigated and scientists were able to demonstrate good correlation between Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) determined by HPLC with post-column derivatization and standard colorimetic assay. This method was successfully applied to analysis of extracts from sloe fruits and mirabelle plums and allowed to calculate concentration of individual antioxidants as well as TE antioxidant capacity.


Pickering Laboratories strives to provide new post-column applications, and the instruments and chemistry to support these applications. It is our philosophy to provide a complete solution and customer support. We plan to follow-up this interesting research with some development of our own to see if we can optimize the post-column technique further. 
The full version of the paper can be found in the Wiley online library:
REFERENCE:
Kusznierewicz, B., Piasek, A., Bartoszek, A., Namiesnik, J., “The Optimisation of Analytical Parameters for Routine Profiling of Antioxidants in Complex Mixtures by HPLC Coupled Post-column Derivatization,” Phytochemical Analysis, 22, 392-402 (2011)