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Dr. VighOur research is focused on the development of high performance analytical and preparative-scale separation methods, specifically, electrophoretic separation methods. The first area focuses on the capillary electrophoretic (CE) separation of drug enantiomers. In CE, a chiral additive has to be added to the background electrolyte to achieve enantio-differentiation. We are involved in the synthesis of single-isomer, derivatized ionic cyclodextrins. We have recently developed methods to synthesize hydrophilic, moderately hydrophobic, and hydrophobic derivatives of alpha-, beta- and gamma-cyclodextrins. Currently we are attempting to synthesize (2,6-disulfo)- and (2,6-disulfo-3-acetyl)-beta-cyclodextrin derivatives in order to introduce an ionic functional group onto the chiral face of cyclodextrins and alter the enantio-recognition processes. The second area focuses on the high performance electrophoretic separation of proteins. For analytical-scale, proteomics-related separations we are working on a micro-scale multicompartmental electrolyzer that utilizes isoelectrophoretic focusing to achieve high throughput pre-separation of proteins prior to mass spectrometric analysis. For preparative-scale separations, we are working on the development of an isoelectric trapping (IET) device that provides high production rates and permits the isolation of proteins with very small differences in their pI values. With most of the instrument development done, we focus on the synthesis of hydrolytically stable, high buffering capacity hydrogel membranes whose pH values can be readily tuned in the 2 < pH < 10 range. We are also synthesizing new, high buffering capacity isoelectric buffers for use in pH-biased IET protein separations. |
