Downstream processing in India
A variety of enzyme from different organisms have been synthesized and purified in Indian laboratories. However, in most of these cases, classical methods involving salt precipitation and ion-exchange / affinity chromatography were used. Therefore, awareness about current bioseparation strategies need to be developed. Biotechnological work in this area will allow faster and cheaper isolation and purification of proteins/enzymes. It is hoped that in due course of time, chromatographic methods will be phased out and replaced by non-chromatographic methods. In future, robotics and microchemical techniques will also be used, although expanded bed chromatography should be increasingly used. Dr. M. Gupta and his group at chemistry Department, IIT. New Delhi is one such laboratory, where research on downstream processing of enzymes/proteins has been in progress for many years now.