ABSTRACT
Biotechnology has become an important industry with a major impact on the economic development in the highly industrialized countries. Bioproduction has the reputation of being “clean” and environmentally friendly, an advantage which is in part paid for by complex production environments. As a consequence, the isolation (downstream process) of the high-value bioproducts, for example recombinant proteins or DNA vectors intended for gene therapy, tends to be difficult for two reasons. First of all, the product is easily dam aged and secondly, many of the contaminants/impurities have a very similar chemical nature as the product. For example, they may also be proteins/DNA molecules or even minor vari ants of the actual product. Concomitantly, biotech products in general and especially those intended for the use in humans have to comply to very strict regulations concerning final purity and consistency.
