This recent editorial appeared in SelectScience® on October 6, 2016.
The Phenomenex Story Part 2: Leading the Field in Urine Analytics
Richard Thomas is Chief Scientific Officer at Precision Diagnostics. Sonia Nicholas, Associate Editor at SelectScience®, spoke to Richard to learn more about his work and the technology that he uses in his laboratory.
Sonia Nicholas: Why do you use only Phenomenex HPLC columns?
Richard Thomas: After I achieved my PhD in 2001, I moved to San Diego to work in organic chemistry. I started doing business with Phenomenex almost immediately so I’ve known the team there for a long time now.
I feel very strongly about Phenomenex products – the quality of the product, the service, the technical support and the people are what keeps me returning as a happy customer.
With regards to the technology, I use the HPLC columns because I find them to be competitively priced, significantly more reliable, and more durable than other makes. For me, the most important factors when choosing a column are longevity of the column and reproducibility of the separation. We can analyze 77 compounds in 7 minutes, so it is crucial that there is no drift in the retention time in the column. These columns meet these requirements, which is why we use them.
SN: How do you work in partnership with Phenomenex?
RT: When we are at the start of designing an assay, we work with the team at Phenomenex to decide on which initial column might be best. After that, the scientific team here will go on to actually devise and validate the assays. As well as the column advantages mentioned earlier, the advantage of working with Phenomenex is that the company is very easy to work with. The R&D team is really responsive to questions and get back to us rapidly. The team really listens to my views, which I appreciate.