As Willis points out, Proteins are a real challenge to study. Humans can have as many as 200,000 proteins in a cell. Scientists have so far deciphered only a small fraction of the total. But in the early 1970 s, chemists generally accepted the notion that they could not separate proteins using HPLC because protein molecules are too large and unstable. As well as testing the intact protein, it is also useful to fragment the protein and perform a more detailed analysis.
Peptide mapping is now a key part of quality control in the production of protein drugs.
In the late 1980 s, Dr. Hancock continued to develop these techniques in collaboration with his colleagues at Genentech, the first biotechnology company in the world. In the early days of this new industry, HPLC was essential in proving the stability and high purity that the FDA demands for innovative drug substances. At the same time, capillary electrophoresis, a new separation method, proved particularly effective in DNA sequencing. The human genome program is using an automated version of this method to read the DNA code. Agilent Laboratories' Dr. William Hancock was honored by the Chromatographic Society with the Year 2000 Martin Gold Medal for his longstanding contributions to the advancement of separation science.