42


August/September 2010


Chromatography Today talks to RogerM. Smith, Chromatographic Society JubileeMedallist 1998


In addressing themes for individual issues and aligning interview articles to fit in with the theme, Chromatography Today is very fortunate to be able to call upon the vast array of talent that is embodied in the winners of Chromatographic Societymedals. Appropriately then, for the third in a series of interviews, Chromatography Today talked to Professor RogerM. Smith, Loughborough University who was presented with the Society’s Jubilee Medal in 1998 for, amongst other achievements, his work on supercritical fluid chromatography and groundbreaking high temperature LC work using ‘super-heated’ water as amobile phase.


You had a fascinating career in chemistry (see reference to Chromatographia 60th birthday editorial) starting fromManchester and leading to far-flung locations such as Australia and Fiji even before you became involved in chromatography. Is it fair to say, or an over- simplification, that you first became interested in chromatography as a means to isolating and identifying natural products?


My first exposure to chromatography came at what was then ICI Pharmaceuticals, at Alderley Park when I was a vacation student in 1963 and an AerographGC (later to become a Varian Aerograph) was being used in the same laboratory and then in 1964 with Unilever at Colworth House where I was a vacation student between graduating and starting research at Manchester University.On that occasion it was flavour research based onGC sniffing of the


effluent to characterise the odours and included my first hint ofGC/MS.On starting as a research student I was rapidly introduced to the "new" method of TLC onmicroscope slides (silica in a chloroformsuspension) as part of a synthetic project for purification. This work also developed intoGC on a Pye Argon to identify a degradation product as eithermesaconic, citraconic or itaconic acid as its dimethyl ester. GC and TLC then because a regular component of the degradation studies ofmicrobial natural products inManchester and at ANU in Australia. It continued in the USA on plant products where column and TLC were extensively used for isolation and purification of tumour inhibitors. I also investigated the early potential of HPLC by sending samples of alkaloids toWaters for separation (I still have the chromatogramon a 12 ft x 0.093 in column that they sent).


Subsequently I used ion exchange chromatography for the separation and purification of the components from vancomycin (as an antibiotic before any interest in its use as a chiral selector) at Sussex (where I alsomet Colin Simpson).


Onmoving to Fiji at the University of the South Pacific Imainly employed TLC for the purification of essential oils andmonitored themand sugar waxes byGLC using a packed column Perkin Elmer F11 and F33 instruments.


So I didn't really start onmodern HPLC until I returned to the UK to Loughborough University.


Loughborough University was always very well known for its M.Sc. in Analytical Chemistry and its short courses in GC and HPLC. Did these have a positive effect on, or even was there a synergistic enhancement of, your research in chromatography?


The short courses at Loughborough, which we ran for many years, were very useful because they included a significant input from the instrument industry as speakers and through the loan of equipment for practical work, which meant that we were repeatedly exposed to the latest development and systems and the experts in the field. So a strong synergistic effect both on the MSc and undergraduate teaching and well as our research studies.


In the early 90's you were in the vanguard of the second (or was it third?) coming of SFC. Did you see SFC as a naturalmiddle ground between GC and LC or did your interest in SFC (and SFE) arisemore as an extension of your work in GC?


The interest in SFC was really the second round effectively once the pioneers had


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