(527f) Reminiscences About Electrophoresis

It is an honor to receive the 2013 AES Service Award.  I enjoyed my years on the AES Council especially those when I served as the society’s president.  Since I presented a short history of AES a few years ago, and since I was using electrophoresis even before AES was formed in 1979, and before my association with AES, I’d like to present a historical summary of some of the early electrophoresis techniques I learned in both research and production situations.  The decades of developments I’ve witnessed and especially the current trend toward miniaturization attest to the vibrancy and richness of the field of electrophoresis.  Beginning in the late 1960s I used paper electrophoresis to sequence oligonucleotides.  Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) and isoelectric focusing (IEF) emerged in the 1960s.  In the 1980s western blotting, capillary electrophoresis, preparative PAGE, preparative IEF, and pulse field electrophoresis were developed. In the 1990s the precast gel market grew, as did the use of 2D-PAGE for proteomics. Many methods have faded from view, but others are still around.   The field continues to evolve and I look forward to the emergence and growth of new and better procedures.