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Chromatography Today talks to Kevin Altria (GSK (Harlow) “CE Expert” and 2006 Chromatographic Society Jubilee Medallist


by John Lough


In this latest in a series of occasional interviews with Chromatographic Society medallists it is only appropriate that for this issue the subject of the interview should be an individual who has made a substantial contribution to the field of electrophoresis. In the UK, and indeed much further afield, the name Kevin Altria and the technique capillary electrophoresis (CE) are inextricably linked. Perhaps it is an indication that CE is still in rude health that this is the second interview that Kevin has given on CE in recent months. However, rather than dwell on the future of CE, Chromatography Today’s interest in this Chromatographic Society medallist and outstanding leader in the field was more on his own involvement in the technique and his reflections on the development of the technique.


detector and analysed radio-labelled


pharmaceuticals which involved trips along the Kings Road carrying canisters of radio-active material.


Presentation in 2006 of the Jubilee medal to Kevin (left) by Chris Bevan (Chrom Society President)


I understand that your intimate relationship with CE began right in the very early days for CE in the UK. Can you tell us how you first became involved with CE?


I performed my PhD studies into CE at Birkbeck College at the University of London using home-made equipment in 1985. The equipment would never have been acceptable in today Health and Safety environment – the carbon electrode was taped onto the high voltage cable using insulation tape! It was the first system in the UK and I was the first to report pharmaceutical analysis by CE. It was easy to follow the literature then as there were only a dozen papers! I used to present posters at HPLC meetings and people looked very mystified by the work. I spent some time collaborating with Kings College where I built a radioactivity


I left university and moved into Glaxo R&D where I continued my CE interest by assembling a homemade system there – modifications to the UV detector I had included use of a band saw to cut a slot through the casing – not very elegant but it


worked OK. I showed that CE could be applied to Glaxo drugs and products and was able to support purchase of early commercial equipment – I also worked on equipment prototypes and provided early input to CE manufacturers.


One of early activities that had a significant impact was a series of 3 inter-company collaborations exercises which I co-ordinated with other UK based pharmaceutical companies. Method details and samples were sent to 7/8 different companies who replicated the separations and performed quantitative analysis with good precision obtained across all the companies. We performed chiral separations, quantified paracetamol content in capsules and determined the metal counter- ion of an acidic drug salt. I helped to train 100 FDA scientists in their Washington HQ using


these methods as well and the methods were successful then also which really helped gain regulatory acceptance of CE.


In the early days did you feel that capillary- zone electrophoresis(CZE) was quite limiting and then that the introduction of modes such as micellar electro-kinetic chromatography (MEKC) and micro-emulsion electrokinetic chromatography (MEEKC) were much needed boons to allow you to adequately tackle the complete range of pharmaceutical applications?


CZE is simply the use of buffers to separate charged species so did limit the range a lot. In particular closely related species such as cis- and trans-isomers could not be resolved as they had identical charge/mass ratios. The use of MEKC and MEEKC expanded the resolving power available as selectivity is also based on solubility. MEKC and MEEKC expanded the range to include insoluble and neutral species such as steroids. MEEKC in particular proved useful when dealing with highly insoluble samples such as creams which can be directly dissolved in the microemulsions used for the separation.


At the height of the interest in CE for the analysis of small molecule active pharmaceutical ingredient and drug product in R&D, it seemed that you were pulling off the impossible by focussing your research on company needs yet still being able to publish prolifically. Was there a complete overlap of experiments required here or did


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