Affinity Chromatography

Since its inception in 1968, affinity chromatography has helped solve an increasing number of problems in the biomedical sciences. By this technique, a large number of enzymes have been purified to homogeneity. Many previously unrecognized isoenzymes have been discovered. And the method has been used to solve problems as diverse as the mechanisms of enzyme action, the nature of cell interactions, the mode of immunological and hormone-receptor actions, and the treatment of diseases. The basic concepts of so-called "biospecific adsorption" were known to Emil Starkenstein at the Deutsche Universitât in Prague as early as 1910. However, they generally were not perceived as potentially useful laboratory tools until their formal reintroduction and christening as "affinity chromatography" in 1968 by Pedro Cuatrecasas, Meir Wilchek, and Christian B. Anfinsen, then all at the National Institutes of Health. The impetus for that development was research on the chemistry of the active site of the model enzyme staphylococcal nuclease by ...