| Pall's Expanded Chromatography Offering
In December 2004, Pall acquired BioSepra, the chromatography division of Ciphergen, to complement our technology portfolio and expand our offering of chromatography products. This line of resins greatly simplifies protein purification for drug development and production. The addition of this innovative, broad range of chromatography chemistries strengthened Pall's ability to serve the needs of biotechnology customers.
In 2007, Pall introduced Acrosep™ pre-packed chromatography resins for fast, convenient protein separations. These columns take advantage of the unique, patented characteristics of our HyperD® “gel-in-a-shell” resin. This design gives the high capacity of soft gel in a rigid "shell" without the problems of compressability. This resin provides reproducible packing characteristics while allowing for high binding capacities at fast flow rates.
Determining the Appropriate Chromatographic Method for a Specific Application
Various methods and technologies exist to purify proteins. The characteristics of the protein of interest such as solubility, charge, size, hydrophobicity, and affinity, along with parameters such as sample type, size, purity, efficacy and abundance of desired protein in sample will help you determine the best chromatography method and media for use. (Screening of methods is easily determined using our new Acrosep pre-packed columns or by packing 96-well plates or spin columns. See
In many areas, chromatography resins are the media of choice for chromatography applications, but in some cases where resin-based methods have limitations (for example the purification of viruses or large molecules), membranes have proven to be a robust, scaleable and economic alternative. Membranes perform well in certain applications because of their fast flow rates compared to resins. To meet the needs of such applications, Pall offers Mustang ion exchange membranes.
Conventional bead-based chromatography media rely on internal diffusive pores to create large surface areas to achieve high binding capacities. Because of this, the binding capacity of traditional resin columns is flow sensitive due to the diffusive nature of the pores. It is also difficult for large biomolecules such as DNA or viruses to access the internal binding sites of the pores, resulting in low capacity at high flow rates for traditional resins.
Mustang membranes possess large convective pores. The dynamic binding capacity is relatively insensitive to the effects of high flow rates even for large molecules such as plasmids and viruses.
Membranes outperform resins when there is a need to purify large molecules or in situations where faster flow is needed because:
- binding kinetics are not limited by diffusion;
- binding and elution of large molecules are not restricted by pore size;
- dynamic capacity is independent of flow rate.
Membrane chromatography is extremely economical because flow rates are significantly faster than traditional resin chromatography, decreasing cycle time and increasing throughput. | 
