Separation techniques for biotechnology in the 1990s.

Scientists are constantly looking for better and cheaper separation techniques to replace or complement the current technology. Over the past few decades, and in particular the last 10 years, new separation techniques or modifications of existing techniques have become available for separating compounds from complex sample matrices. There are many areas, however, where the separation technology is not sufficient to achieve high purity and yield while remaining cost effective. In the area of biotechnology, separation techniques are urgently needed to meet demands for ultra-high purity and yield. Thus, a variety of techniques are being developed to address these needs. Generally, biological compounds for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries must be obtained at greater than 99.9% purity (sometimes greater than 99.99%) while maintaining high yield. In any area of chemistry this degree of purity would cause problems; in biotechnology it is even more difficult to achieve because of the complex sample matrices. In addition, the compounds of interest may be very similar to impurities or contaminants in the sample matrix, and the compounds could be denatured (or even destroyed) by certain solvents and/or high temperature. In particular, three areas of biotechnology have presented scientists with problems in separations: cell separations, DNA-RNA separations, and protein-peptide separations. The current technology available and possible future trends in these areas are discussed, and also problems to be solved in the future.