Electrophoresis in space

• Published in: Journal of biotechnology Vol. 47; no. 2; pp. 335 - 339
• Main Authors: Seaman, Geoffrey V.F., Snyder, Robert S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.01.1996
• ISSN: 0168-1656; 1873-4863
• DOI: 10.1016/0168-1656(96)01530-1

The vital and central importance of separation technology to advances in biotechnology and associated disciplines, emphasizes that without it many problems in basic biology and critical ones involved in the delivery of better health care will remain unsolved. Various techniques are employed for the separation of mixtures of biological materials, including various centrifugation and elutriation, chromatographic and partition methods, crystallization, immunoprecipitation, and a host of electrokinetic methods from capillary electrophoresis and recycling isoelectric focusing to gel electrophoresis. Many techniques used by biotechnologists are compromised by gravitational effects. Thus, the rationale has been to conduct separation processes in space where low gravity would eliminate adverse effects thereby offering significant advantages for some separation processes. A significant proportion of the space-related effort in separation technology has focused on electrokinetic processes.