Scope of CCC 2006

CCC 2006 intends to bring together, in the cradle of the development of CCC at NIH in Bethesda/Washington D.C., scientists from all around the globe that develop and apply CCC/CPC methodology in their research. At the same time, CCC 2006 intends to provide state-of-the-art information on the technology for those that are interested in the discipline.

Specifically, CCC 2006 will be dedicated to the following topis:

• CCC Method Development
• CCC Instrumentation
• Application of CCC in Biomedical Research
• CCC in Natural Products Analysis in the form of a 1-day Symposium on Aug 10, 2006)

Background

Countercurrent Chromatography (CCC) (1970) is a collection of continuous liquid-liquid partition techniques that do not use a solid support. These include, among others, high - speed CCC (HSCCC) (1981) centrifugal partition chromatography (CPC) (1982) and pH-zone-refining CCC (1993). All CCC systems use suitable column configurations to retain one of the two immiscible solvent phases in the column while the second phase is pumped through the column. These techniques apply to separations of mixtures that range from analytical (microgram) to preparative (>10 grams up to kilograms) scale and are usually accomplished within a few hours. This relatively new methodology was found to be useful for separation and/or purification of components from medicinal plants (e.g., flavonoids, alkaloids, anthraquinones, lignans, steroids, saponins, glycosides), dyes, lipids, agrochemicals, vitamins, inorganic elements, amino acids, peptides and various closely-related isomers. It can also be used for separation of biopolymers, such as proteins and nucleic acids, using Albertsson's aqueous-aqueous polymer-phase systems.