ABSTRACT
An integral part of the study of biochemical science is devoted
to the separation and analysis of a particular substance. There-
fore, if we look behind revolutions in life science, we find highly
developed separation techniques. For instance, in the field of
genetic engineering, which has been progressing very rapidly
for the last decade, the first step is the isolation of genes. Al-
though there are several different methods for this step, each
method is supported by various types of effective and sophisti-
cated separation techniques. If the basic science thus estab-
lished is directed to the production of a useful compound, the
productivity may be sometimes expected to be more than a hun-
dred times or more compared with that using conventional meth-
ods. However, the overall productivity of the production process
cannot be increased to as high a level as we expect from con-
ventional production processes, and often industrialization of the
new process is abandoned. This may be partly due to the high
costs of energy and raw materials, since for the same amount of
final product, the minimum energy and raw materials necessary
for production are the same. However, the separation steps that
follow the production step are often critical to the overall ef-
ficiency. The separation step is called a downstream treatment
whose importance has been gradually recognized in the practical
application of biotechnology.
