I’ve just read about an exciting new application for CCC. Our friends at Abbott, Jill Hochlowski, Jeffrey Pan, Philip Searle, Wayne Buck and Stephen Spanton, have taken advantage of one of the key benefits of the liquid stationary phase for ADME studies (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion). ADME studies involve looking for minor constituents in very complex biological matrices. A major obstacle for HPLC in doing ADME studies is that there is no assurance of complete recovery of the starting sample, on the contrary you will almost certainly lose some material due to permanent absorption on the silica (not to mention possible loss of material that can occur while you are preparing the sample for injection). CCC on the other hand has the advantages of requiring little to no sample prep and most importantly 100% recovery of even the most minor constituents.

For their application an automated CCC system was prepared with an on-line MS in addition to the standard UV detection.  This allowed for definitive identification of target material during the run.

The article “Purification of drugs from biological fluids by counter-current chromatography,” appears in the Journal of Chromatography A, 1216(2009)6162-6169.  Check it out!!