BIOMEDICAL CHROMATOGRAPHY, VOL.
10, 191 (1996)
Book Reviews
ELENA D. KATZ (ED.)
High Performance Liquid Chromato-
graphy: Principles and Methods in
Biotechnology
Separations Science Series, John Wiley and
Sons Ltd., Chichester, UK, 1996. 520 pp.,
ISBN 0 471 93444 5, f50
This book is aimed at the biotechnologist
who may be using HPLC with little
theoretical understanding of the technique.
It is divided into two sections, the first half
of its 520 pages being devoted to the
principles of HPLC and instrumentation
and the second half to applications for
biomolecules. It is questionable whether it
is necessary to devote so much space to the
usual, although sometimes idiosyncratic,
explanation of the principles of HLPC,
including an historical survey and a some-
what misguided attempt to change the
commonly used nomenclature for non-
polar interactions in chromatography. The
second part of the book deals with applica-
tions for separations of biomolecules and
includes chapters on high-pH chromato-
graphy of oligosaccharides and
glycopeptides using PAD detection, HPLC
of proteins, peptides and oligonucleotides
(particularly PCR products) and a very
useful chapter on the theoretical and prac-
tical differences between large-scale
preparative separations and analytical-scale
HPLC, written by G. B. Cox.
The book can be recommended to those
who need to understand the use of a
number of different chromatographic tech-
niques in order to purify and characterize
proteins. The index is straightforward to
use. It is unfortunate that the camera-ready
format contains a noticeable number of
typographical errors.
BERYL TRACEY
MRC Toxicology Unit
Hodgkin Building
University of Leicester
P.O. Box 138
Lancaster Road
Leicester
UK
@ 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
W. J. LOUGH AND I. W. WAINER edged experts in their particular fields of
(EDS.). interest. However, I wonder if it is realistic
High Performance Liquid Chromato- to aim it at BSc or even MSc students. To
graphy-Fundamental Principles and me this book is more for the many
Practice thousands of us worldwide who use HPLC
London: Blaclue Academic and Profes- every day, but who either have never had
sional, 1995, Softback, 276 pp., E22.50. any formal grounding in the basics, or wish
ISBN 0751400769. to know more about a particular topic. As
such it provides a useful reference work,
This book is said to be aimed at under-
but this usefulness is restricted by the
graduates and those on other courses where
inconsistent way in which citation of
HPLC is taught. The authors of the various
published work has been handled. Better a
chapters are working in either the UK or
conventionally referenced work than a
North America. The editors provide the
half-way house.
introduction (14 pp.), and chapters on
method development and quantitation (24
R. J. FLANAGAN
pp.), and food, organic and pharmaceutical
Poisons Unit, Guy’s Hospital
applications (21 p p a ‘catch-all’). The
other chapter headings are: efficiency, Avonley Road
retention, selectivity and resolution in London
chromatography (21 pp.); modes of chro- SE14 5ER
matography (42 pp.); support materials and February, 1996
solvents (12 pp.); instrumentation: pumps,
injectors and column design (16 pp.);
instrumentation: detectors and integrators
(28 pp.); sample preparation (28 pp.); and
environmental analysis (14 pp.). The index
(7 pp.) contains many cryptic entries, for
example ‘air’, ‘soil’ and ‘water’-all that
is lacking is ‘fire’ to complete the Alche-
mist’s set of essential forces!
All-in-all the work seems well pre-
sented, reasonably priced and fairly
up-to-date, although there is nothing sub-
stantial on chiral HPLC, derivatization, or
on HPLC-mass spectrometry or other
‘hyphenated’ techniques. The figures are
clear and there are a fair number of
chromatograms. However, there are no
sample questionslanswers, a strange omis-
sion for a supposed examination primer.
The references, moreover, are a bit of a
mess-presumably it was intended to sup-
ply ‘further reading’, but a few
‘bibliographies’ also contain conventional
references and yet do not give the titles of
the articles listed. Even worse, some cita-
tions in the text are not listed in the
bibliographies.
This book contains a lot of useful
information, much of it from acknowl-