Pittcon 2011 kicks off on March 14 (opening ceremony scheduled for 8:30 AM – Level 2 in front of rooms 213B/214B).
At the end of the week, we’re giving away a Kindle 3G Wireless!
To be entered in the drawing, simply visit us at Booth 1326 – and if you’re on 
,
be sure to check in (here’s a link to iChromatography Booth 1326 at Pittcon).
There’s also a chance that a visit to Booth 1326 at Pittcon will be enlightening for you.
Hope to see you there!
Pittcon 2011 is coming up soon! We’ll be at Booth 1326 ready
to talk chromatography and share some great stuff with you!
Oh, and check out this video we just put together – if you were at Pittcon the past couple of years, you may see yourself in this!
We are proud to be joining several other Delaware-based 
companies in Washington, DC this June for the BIO 2011 International Convention.
If you’re attending BIO 2011, you might want to check out the Delaware Ambassador that’s joining us there – the 93-foot replica of the 1625 Dutch Tall Ship, the Kalmar Nyckel!
We recently got a tour of this impressive sailing vessel from Captain Sharon and Catherine Parsells of the Kalmar Nyckel Foundation – here’s a brief look at the tour:
This is incredibly exciting – and here’s a tip – if you use 
foursquare, you will definitely want to “check in” at booth 1326 during Pittcon in Atlanta!
Here’s the news:
PITTCON MOBILE APP
iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android & BlackBerry
Pittcon has teamed up with CrowdCompass to provide a great new tool to use before, during, and after the conference. It’s easy to use, and it’s free.
| PLAN | Create your own personal schedule with detailed information on sessions, speakers and topics at your fingertips. |
| SCOUT | Comprehensive exhibitor information is built–in enabling you to flag the ones you’d like to see when you’re there. |
| LOCATE | Find that booth, meeting room, nearby hotel or restaurant you’re looking for. |
| CONNECT | Find other attendees and easily share contact information with them. |
| ENGAGE | Follow the conversation from Pittcon on Twitter and add your voice. |
The 2010 Tweet-ups at Pittcon were so much fun, we’re 
doing it again in 2011!
Here’s the latest from Pittcon:
Due to the success of last years Tweet Up Tuesday, we have decided to schedule morning and evening Tweet Ups again during Conference Week.
The Morning Tweet Up (social media brainstorming session where you can share ideas and experiences with respect to social media) will be held Tuesday, March 15, 2011 at 10:00 a.m. at Foodworks, located in the Georgia World Congress Center, Building B, Level 2.
The Evening Tweet Up (more of a socially based meeting where participants who met on Twitter get together to meet in person) will be held Tuesday, March 15, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. at STATS Restaurant and Bar.
There’s more ways to connect this year – click here to learn more from Pittcon
At the December Innovative Technologies Breakfast at 
Delaware State University, we learned a lot about Crime Scene Investigations and some new tools that are being tested by law enforcement in Delaware.
The goals with the tools from Advanced Response Concepts are to provide a solid evidence chain for dectectives, including proper labelling and handling for samples that will later be separated with Thin Layer Chromatography.
Here’s Peter Schecter to explain how it works:
Our Technical Director, Ned Dugan, recently participated in a 
discussion about Thin Layer Chromatography with Ling Bei and Dave Lentz of EMD Chemicals and the editors of LCGC.
Here’s a couple of excerpts:
What developments have you the most excited or intrigued in TLC?
Dugan: There are two categories that come to mind. First, I’m excited to see TLC making a significant difference in people lives, whether that’s protecting people from counterfeit anti-malarial medication or helping law enforcement catch criminals through ink analysis.
The second category involves applications that a person just wouldn’t normally think about. For example, using TLC to determine the difference between diesel smokes (whether the smoke contains a potent carcinogen or not). That makes me wonder just how TLC is going to be applied in the next 5–10 years.
Bei & Lentz: Anything that will help spread the word that TLC does more than you think and that it can help solve a lot of modern problems.
Continued automation and software breakthroughs have allowed TLC users to control variables and achieve better reproducibility and faster results and to finally develop rugged, validated methods. Now it also allows them to interface with lab data and LIMS systems.
…
What are the pros and cons of using TLC in a food safety lab? How about in an environmental lab?
Dugan: The advantages of using TLC in food safety and environmental labs are the same as using TLC in any lab. It is an easy-to-use method that can accommodate multiple samples and standards simultaneously. It is inexpensive and affords (pun intended) the analyst a snapshot into the constituents of a sample matrix in a way that other forms of chromatography simply can not provide.
The downside of TLC is that it is only one tool in the toolbox. One tool won’t fix all problems. It takes the collection of tools to effectively manage an analytical laboratory.
Bei & Lentz: Common advantages of TLC for both types of labs include little or no cleanup even for some “dirty” samples, multiple parallel separations under identical run conditions for high throughput, and very much lower initial and consumable costs compared to HPLC or GC. Plus, every component of even extremely complex food or environmental samples is somewhere on the developed TLC plate and can be isolated using specific visualization or indicator reagents, then scraped off and recovered for further analysis or purification.
…
What do you hope and expect to see in the future for TLC?
Dugan: What I expect to see is TLC being used more often for the versatile tool that it is in multiple fields of science. I hope to see TLC applied to even more areas that would make a significant difference in the world. For example, helping to develop and test potential alternatives to fossil fuels or developing new methods for cleaning water supplies.
You can read the complete discussion here.
Here’s a great look at what to expect at Pittcon 2011 in Atlanta (we’re going to be at booth 1326):
We’re proud of the depth and breadth of knowledge we have in the field of chromatography and the many friends we have in the field.
Today at EAS, we’re joined by the good people at Separations Methods Technology – pictured here is Richard Plaugher talking with Steven Miles. Come on by EAS Booth 524 and share your Thin Layer Chromatography and HPLC stories.
Here’s Micky Jones, ready to talk chromatography with anyone who comes to booth #524 at EAS:
