Interest in biomolecules including proteins and oligonucleotides has exploded in recent years, but while supplies of raw materials are relatively abundant, an ongoing problem encountered is separation andor purification of these materials. Displacement chromatography can be used to perform such difficult separations in an efficient and cost effective manner.

This invention is directed to a high-throughput process for screening proteins for kinetic stability.Kinetically stable proteins are trapped in one conformation and have a high barrier to unfolding, so they are resistant to aggregation and degradation and have a longer half-life.The ability to quickly and easily identify kinetically stable proteins would have a myriad of applications in the biotechnology industry, pharmaceutical industry, and in basic life science research.

Chemicals affect living organisms in both positive and negative ways, depending on the chemical. Chemicals can have different effects on different organisms, for example, potential drugs that work in animals studies but fail in human trials. A major reason to these differences is that species, individuals, and organs all have different kinds and amounts of enzymes. There is a need for a technology to rapidly, effectively, and economically test the heatlh effects of chemicals.

After discovering that a natural product has a particular, useful biological activity, it is desirable to prepare analogs of the natural product. However, natural products and their analogs are typically complex molecules requiring multi-step syntheses that are usually laborious, costly, and time consuming. This invention is directed to a microfluidics device that can be used to prepare natural products and their analogs.

Displacement chromatography is a powerful preparative technique that can offer high production rates, resolving power and elevated yields and purity of a desired byproduct. Historically, it was necessary to screen displacer candidates individually in column experiments using trial and error, a very laborious task.