the 2017 lcgc awards - anaric...

The 2017 LCGC AwardsA decade of LCGC awards has seen some of chromatography’s modern icons and rising stars honoured. In this 10th year of the award, we are pleased to honour two superb separation scientists: Pat Sandra, the winner of the 2017 Lifetime Achievement in Chromatography Award, and Deirdre Cabooter, the 2017 Emerging Leader in Chromatography. For the third consecutive year, the LCGC awards will be presented at an oral symposium held at Pittcon 2017. This year’s session, which were held on Monday 6 March, featured talks by both award winners and Milos Novotny of Indiana University, Jim Jorgenson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Gert Desmet of the Free University of Brussels (Vrije Universiteit Brussel).

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Pat Sandra

Pat Sandra’s career has encompassed

a wide spectrum of analytical

techniques, blending the world of

academia and private enterprise, and

brought separation science into the

mainstream consciousness. But more

than anything, it has been dominated

by analytical excellence, innovation,

and a unique gift for problem solving.

Pat Sandra graduated from Ghent

University, Belgium, in 1967 with a

B.Sc. in chemistry and in 1969 with a

master’s degree in organic chemistry,

and was immediately invited to

join Professor Maurice Verzele’s

laboratory to begin a Ph.D. thesis on

the contribution of hops to the flavour

of beer, a topic that had become

controversial at the time in Belgium,

where beer is an integral part of the

culture. Unravelling the complexity of

a beer extract required high-resolution

techniques and this research led

directly to Sandra’s early career focus

in capillary gas chromatography (GC).

Six years later, Sandra successfully

defended his Ph.D. at Ghent University

and just one year later he joined

the Faculty of Sciences at Ghent

University as an Assistant Professor.

By 1985, however, Sandra

was growing frustrated with the

department’s reluctance to back him

in broadening Ghent’s research field

in separation sciences and to start

investigations in supercritical fluid

chromatography (SFC) and capillary

electrophoresis (CE). By 1st February

1986, Sandra quit the university.

Inspired by entrepreneurs such as

Rudolf Kaiser, Sandra started the

Research Institute for Chromatography

(RIC), surviving through teaching

courses on GC and GC coupled to

mass spectrometry (MS), as well as

sponsorships from Carlo Erba and

later from Hewlett-Packard. Two

years after quitting the university,

however, Sandra accepted an offer

by the head of the department to

return and become the new head

of the separation science group. A

fruitful collaboration on capillary GC

then began between Sandra’s own

RIC and Ghent’s separation science

group. Splitting his time between the

institute and his new responsibilities

at the university, Sandra decided to

focus the university department’s

research on high performance liquid

chromatography (HPLC), CE, SFC, and

hyphenated systems, and that work

led to a number of advances.

In 1991, Sandra accepted an

invitation to be a visiting professor at

Eindhoven University of Technology

in The Netherlands, teaching a

course in environmental analysis. A

further opportunity arrived in January

1998, when Sandra was appointed

Professor in Analytical Chemistry at

the University of Stellenbosch, South

Africa. There, he established a centre

of excellence in separation sciences

and received the A1 status. For seven

years he shuttled between Belgium

and South Africa to fulfill his duties at

the different universities and at

the RIC.

Sandra continued to make waves.

He co-founded the Pfizer Analytical

Research Centre at Ghent University

in 2003, and became its director. He

continued his links with South Africa

where he became Extraordinary

Professor at the University of

Stellenbosch from 2006 to 2013. In

2013 he was invited by President

Barroso of the European Community

to become member of the Research

Councel of the EU.

Meanwhile, he continued to develop

and expand his business. Following

the success of the RIC in Belgium,

Sandra founded a second facility

in Lille, France, in 2001 to focus on

method development, act as the

exclusive distributor of Gerstel GmbH,

as well as a value-added reseller

(VAR) of Agilent Technologies. In

— Lewis Botcherby

-$r($�&VSPQF March 2017126

Pat Sandra, 2017 Lifetime Achievement in Chromatography

Deirdre, 2017 Emerging Leader in Chromatography

2016, he cofounded with his sons

Tom and Koen anaRIC biologics, a

centre combining R&D and GMP for

biopharmaceuticals

We interviewed several of Pat’s

colleagues, friends, and former students

about his career, achievements, impact,

and relationships.

Expansive and GroundbreakingSandra is well known for his expansive

knowledge in all aspects of modern

separation techniques and this wide

range of knowledge has led to an

impressive list of publications and

patents. He is the author or coauthor

of more than 550 scientific papers

and has contributed to books covering

many different areas of separation

science. He is admired not just for

the breadth of his work, but for his

innovation.

“Pat Sandra is rightly considered a

‘guru’ of chromatography. This is clear

from a brief glance at his published

outputs, where by any metric—number

of papers, citations, h-index, and so

forth—he is clearly a world leader in

the field,” said André de Villiers, who is

an associate professor at Stellenbosch

University in South Africa.

“Pat is unique in his breadth of

understanding and experience in

analytical separation science,” said

Milton L. Lee, Emeritus Professor

of Chemistry at Brigham Young

University and last year’s winner

of the LCGC Lifetime Achievement

Award. “He has been an innovator in

every form of analytical separations,

including all the chromatographic and

electrically driven techniques, coupled

systems, detection, and sample

preparation. Few, if any, have such an

all-encompassing perspective of the

field.”

Milos V. Novotny, Distinguished

Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at

Indiana University, agrees.

“He has had an enormous impact

in the field of separation science,

from his seminal contributions to

column technology during the early

Table 1: Winners of the LCGC awards

Year Lifetime Achievement Emerging Leader

2008 Walt Jennings Gert Desmet

2009 Harold McNair Kevin Schug

2010 Georges Guiochon Jared Anderson

2011 James W. Jorgenson Dwight Stoll

2012 Lloyd Snyder Emily Hilder

2013 Peter W. Carr Davy Guillarme

2014 Fred E. Regnier Andre De Villiers

2015 Joseph Jack Kirkland Caroline West

2016 Milton L. Lee Debby Mangelings

2017 Pat Sandra Deirdre Cabooter

127www.chromatographyonline.com

The 2017 LCGC Awards

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important period in capillary GC to

unique sampling techniques and GC

instrumentation, supercritical fluid

chromatography, and more recently,

to biomolecular separations,” Novotny

said. “He is clearly one of the most

influential scientists in our field.”

“Pat always had an excellent

feeling for the critical ‘pain-points’

in separation science,” added Frank

David, the R&D Director of Chemical

Analysis at the RIC.

In particular, Sandra’s ability to

take on new technologies has truly

impressed other scientists in the field.

“He has always been one of the first to

embrace new technological evolutions

and very often he is lying at the origin

of them,” said Gert Desmet, Professor

at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. “He

was doing separations no one else

could do.”

“Pat’s career can be defined

by the almost intuitive selection of

successful research topics before they

even exist or become mainstream,”

added Frederic Lynen, his successor

at Ghent University. “He was for

example performing GC–MS based

‘metabolomics’ long before the

terminology was coined. That is also

true for his lipodomics, chiral, capillary

electrochromatography (CEC), and

LC×LC work.”

Early ResearchSandra’s early research focus on

capillary gas chromatography

stemmed from the work he did during

his doctoral work under Maurice

Verzele, who laid down the gauntlet

for Sandra to continue the technique’s

development. Sandra obliged. In the

next 10 years, he pioneered numerous

developments that contributed to

state-of-the-art GC column technology.

Those contributions included surface

treatment by leaching, dendrite and

whisker formation, deactivation by

persilylation and with amino-alcohols,

immobilization of the stationary

phases, introduction of new stationary

phases (such as superoxes,

crosslinkable biscyanosilicone phases,

and silanol-terminated silicone

phases), and more (1).

Frank David remembers those days

when he worked under Sandra as a

master’s student in 1982 at Ghent.

“The themes we were working on at

the university in the 1980s included

capillary GC column technology,

injection, miniaturized sample

preparation, and multidimensional

GC,” David said. “The results of

that research have undoubtedly

contributed to the ‘mature’ state of GC

today.”

A story from that time illustrates a

common theme mentioned throughout

our interviews: Sandra’s flexibility and

creativity as well as his determination

to succeed.

Carlo Bicchi spent some time working

in Verzele’s laboratory in 1984, while

visiting from Turin University. During

that time, he collaborated with Sandra’s

group, working with the young Frank

David on direct capture of volatiles

emitted from living plants. Because of

an unusual story related to academic

jealousies, Bicchi said, Sandra was

suddenly left without instruments, so

he and David had to move their work to

Sandra’s own Siemens heartcut

GC–GC instrument. In their work

up to that point, the volatiles

were being captured on thick film

polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) column

traps by sorption, and the recovery of



Pat Sandra and Jean-Marie Dimandja prepare to present the John B. Phillips Award for Outstanding GC×GC publication at the 1st Dalian International Symposia and Exhibition on Chromatography held in Dalian, China (June 2007).

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A young Pat Sandra relaxes with his wife Martina.

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the volatiles was planned to be carried out by a completely

different system based on conventional GC. But suddenly,

that conventional GC instrument was no longer available

to the team. So Bicchi and David had a long, two-day

discussion with Pat, and then designed a new system.

“After a lot of experiments, myself and Frank under Pat’s

supervision successfully assembled a primitive but effective

direct resistively heated system to desorb the trapped

analytes,” Bicchi relates. “To the best of my knowledge, it

was one of the first times where sorption was applied to

headspace sampling, after Kurt Grob’s introduction, and a

chromatographic column was directly heated.”

As referenced earlier, Sandra always had a unique

intuition for chromatography, right from the beginning. That

intuition extended to recognizing the crucial innovations of

others, and led, for example, to his early recognition of the

importance of flexible fused-silica GC columns introduced

by Dandeneau and Zerenner (2). This view contributed

heavily to the early direction of Sandra’s research and was

a view he maintained, despite some vocal opposition from

proponents of alternatives. History has since vindicated his

conclusion.

But for Sandra’s keen chromatographic intuition and

creativity to flourish, he needed to step outside the relative

safety of academia.

Separation EntrepreneurSince its foundation in 1986, Sandra’s company, the

Research Institute for Chromatography (RIC), has gone

from strength to strength. Frank David has been there to

witness its growth from the beginning. “It was of course

a challenge for him, and partly for me, to start a private

“PAT’S CAREER CAN BE DEFINED BY THE ALMOST INTUITIVE SELECTION OF SUCCESSFUL RESEARCH TOPICS BEFORE THEY EVEN EXIST OR BECOME MAINSTREAM”FREDERIC LYNEN

www.chromatographyonline.com


Pat Sandra and Frederic Lynen at Pat’s retirement party in 2012.

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company independent from the safe

haven of the university,” David said.

“However, I believe it was a very

exciting experience for the both of us,

and we could enjoy a unique position

as a research institute in between

the academic world, industry, and

instrument manufacturers.”

But the challenges of setting up

a new company can be daunting

and none more so than the financial

element. Surviving from grants in

the early days came at a cost

of missed opportunities, as

Sandra referenced in the book

Chromatography—A Century of

Discovery 1900–2000: The Bridge

to the Sciences/Technology (1).

An example was the work Sandra

undertook in 1986 with resistant

heated capillaries. “Fused silica

tubing was enveloped in a

stainless-steel jacket, insulated like

an electrical wire, and the metal

column ends were connected to

a power supply,” he recounted.

“Retention time reproducibility was

not excellent, but nevertheless the

principle was patent pending for one

year.” Because of a lack of funds,

however, Sandra could not continue

the patent application. “A missed

opportunity—resistively heated

column GC, what we called at that

time flash GC,” said Sandra.

Setbacks weren’t going to stop

Sandra, however. “Pat’s work ethic

has always been impeccable,” notes

Lynen. “He is the kind of character

who is always polite and friendly to

everybody while never compromising

on his scientific no-nonsense attitude.”

That work ethic would imbue Sandra’s

achievements in the late 1980s and

1990s as he split his time between

his recently formed company, newly

acquired academic responsibilities in

his role as director of the separation

science group of the organic chemistry

department at Ghent University,

symposium organizing, and editorial

roles.

Patently InnovativeIn addition to his stellar work in

capillary GC, Sandra has also

contributed to a remarkably

broad span of research areas.

“He has a prominent spot in the

history books as one of the great

experimentalists in chromatography,”

said Desmet. Sandra’s work includes

both fundamental and applied

high-level research in all forms of

chromatography, including HPLC,

SFC, electrophoresis, and micellar

electrokinetic chromatography

(MEKC). Hyphenating these with

on-line sample preparation and

mass spectrometric detection, he

has applied these techniques across

multiple application fields, including

the chemical and petrochemical

industries, food science,

environmental analysis, forensic

analysis, pharmaceuticals, and the

life sciences. His publiactions in all

these different fields and techniques

are witnessing this.

“Certainly, Pat is always attacking

the cutting edges of the research in

the field of separation science,” said

Andrei Medvedovici, Professor and

Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry

at the University of Bucharest in

Romania. “He is always first or

among the first to develop new

frontiers.” Milton Lee echoed that

sentiment. “Few, if any, have such an

all-encompassing perspective of the

field,” he said.

As a result, detailing all the

contributions in Sandra’s later career

is a mammoth task. Certainly, a

well referenced development was

his work in sample preparation and

more specifically the development of

stir-bar sorptive extraction (SBSE),

which went on to be commercialized

with Gerstel as the “Twister”

technology. His early work with

SFC resulted in the development of

multicolumn chiral analysis and

improved lipid analysis by applying

silver ion chromatography and

coordination ion-spray mass

spectrometry. Furthermore, Sandra

introduced chiral CEC and various

novel approaches for chiral CE and

MEKC, as well as inventing “per

aqueous” liquid chromatography

(PALC). The 2000s saw Sandra’s

attention shift towards HPLC with

notable work in ultrahigh-pressure

LC (UHPLC), high temperature

LC, and multidimensional LC. In

more recent years, together with

his son Koen Sandra, his attention

has shifted towards the application

of chromatographic and mass

spectrometric techniques in life

sciences with a particularly emphasis

in biopharmaceuticals and omics.

He is an innovator, and the span of

his innovation has been enormous.

This work also led to many patents—

despite missed opportunities like that

for flash GC.

The Problem SolverOne of the most famous and

well referenced stories relating

to Sandra stems from his work to

solve the Belgian dioxin crisis in 1999,

which some consider his greatest

accomplishment. “By properly

managing expectations and quickly

developing and implementing rapid

analysis methods, Pat managed to

help defuse a crisis of truly great

proportions,” said

Tadeusz Górecki,

a professor at

the University

of Waterloo,

Canada. “In

the process,

he put

separation

science front

and centre

for the

Pat talking during his surprise “Farewell” party held after HTC 2012, Bruges, Belgium.

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general public to see and became a face for

chromatography, at least in Belgium.”

The crisis originated from chicken farmers’ observations

of premature death and nervous disorders among chicks,

combined with a high ratio of eggs failing to hatch. While

various theories were postulated, dioxin contamination was

the lead theory, championed by a laboratory specialized in the

analysis of such compounds. But with a four-week response

time for dioxin analysis, the crisis was spiralling. Four months

after the initial problems were reported, strong measures were

taken to protect the public from food contamination, including

the destruction of eggs, chickens, and all related products.

Yet the source of the contamination was still unknown.

“At the same time, the Belgian government released

some confusing information, including the statement that

these analyses were extremely complex and could take

several weeks,” said Frank David, who was working at the

RIC with Sandra when the crisis was unfolding. Sandra

and others at the RIC remained unconvinced that dioxins

only could contaminate food products at ppb levels without

the presence of other chlorine-containing contaminants

in much higher levels. They instead believed the high

dioxin (PCDF and PCDD) ratios seen in poultry samples

suggested polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination,

a conclusion stemming from astute observations made

during animal feed analyses carried out over many years

at the RIC. The contamination was caused by uncontrolled

disposal of transformer (PCBs) oil mixed with edible

oils. The link between dioxins, PCBs, contaminated oils,

fat, animal feed, and chickens seemed only logical to

Sandra and his team. “We got our hands on an animal

feed sample and were able to confirm within 24 hours

this hypothesis by demonstrating the presence of high

levels of PCBs using state-of-the-art GC–MS technology,”

said David. The link between PCBs and dioxins was later

confirmed by other laboratories and accepted by the

European Commission. Tens of thousands of food samples

had to be analyzed before Belgian food could be released

and the analysis of PCBs compared to dioxins was much

faster and above all much cheaper. “This also led to a

national and European initiative of PCB monitoring that is

still performed today, and also contributes to the European

food safety programme,” added David.

The ability to think critically and logically brought Sandra

fame in the dioxin crisis, but he used those skills to solve

many other real-world problems, including a few others

that captured public attention. An example was his work to

defend two world champions in the motor world during the

mid-1990s.

The first involved Michael Schumacher. In 1995,

Schumacher won the Brazilian Grand Prix, but was

disqualified following a claim that his gasoline deviated

from the approved formulation. The RIC then performed a

detailed analysis on fuel samples taken from Schumacher’s

“LET’S BE HONEST. I WAS FORMED AS A RESEARCHER OF SEPARATION SCIENCES BY PROF. PAT SANDRA.”ANDRÉ DE VILLIERS

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car. “Based on the analysis results

and Pat’s expertise and presentation

at the French FIA court, Schumacher’s

disqualification was lifted and he

became World Champion,” explained

Frank David. The following year

Sandra repeated the feat for Belgian

motocross rider Eric Geboers, who

thanks to Sandra’s analysis was

crowned world champion based on

the points he recovered after being

cleared of wrongdoing.

Tadeusz Górecki cites another

example of Sandra’s ability to solve

real-world problems. While Górecki

was visiting the RIC in the early 1990s,

Sandra invited Górecki to join him on

an appointment at a nearby brewery

that had run into a problem. A recent

batch of beer had a distinct and quite

unpleasant chemical flavour to it,

and no one could identify the cause.

“We got to taste the beer and it was

truly awful!” Górecki recalls. Sandra

collected a number of samples and

got to work. He managed to identify a

bromochlorophenol as the chemical

responsible for the bad taste and

smell. “This proved to be more difficult

than one would think, as the mass

spectrum was not included in the NIST

MS library back then,” said Górecki.

“So Pat had to use the ‘classical’

approach to MS data interpretation

based on fragmentation rules.” It

turned out that the brewery had

decided to save some money in their

water treatment system by replacing

high purity hydrochloric acid (HCl)

suitable for contact with food with

technical HCl, which turned out to be

contaminated. Finding this solution

was “classical Pat in action”, said

Górecki. “What drives him most is the

sheer curiosity and the challenge of

solving a problem that others cannot,”

he said. “To me, this was the prelude

to the Belgian dioxin crisis. A different

problem on a different scale, but the

same motivation and approach.”

AwardsGiven Sandra’s accomplishments,

it is not surprising that Sandra has

had numerous accolades bestowed

upon him from across the world.

Highlights include the 1989 Tswett

Award; the 1994 Dal Nogare Award;

the 1994 Martin Gold Medal; the

1995 Golay Award; the 1996 Colacro

Medal; the 2004 ISEO Award;

the American Chemical Society

Chromatography Award 2005; the

2008 EAS Chomatography Award; the

2008 CASSS Award; the 2009 John

Knox Award; the 2013 Csaba Horvath

Award; and the Fritz Pregl Medal

in 2014. He also received a doctor

honoris causa title in pharmacy from

the University of Turin, Italy, in 2004,

in food chemistry and safety from the

University of Messina, Italy, in 2007,

and in chemistry from the University of

Bucharest, Romania, in 2012. He was

appointed honorary professor at the

Dalian Institute for Chemical Physics,

Chinese Academy of Sciences, in

June 2007.

Collaborations, Journals, and SymposiaAll along, Sandra has shared his

knowledge and expertise with a

wide array of institutes, programmes,

governments, companies, and people.

His will to collaborate and work with

others is a consistent motif throughout

his life and career. And in every

instance, Sandra leaves an indelible

impact upon people, forming lifelong

collaborations and quite often lifelong

friendships, some of which can start in

unusual places.

“I first met Pat in a McDonald’s

restaurant on the Boardwalk in

Atlantic City, I believe in 1980, during

a Pittcon meeting,” explained Milton

L. Lee. Recognizing Sandra from

attending his presentation earlier,

Lee approached him and introduced

himself. “An enjoyable discussion

then led to a lifetime association and

friendship,” said Lee. Sandra and

Lee went on to start the Journal of

Microcolumn Separations together

in 1989, serving as coeditors

together for 12 years until it was

purchased by Wiley and combined

with the Journal of High Resolution

Chromatography and Chromatography

Communication to form a new journal,

Separation Science. Interestingly,

Sandra had been the editor-in-chief

for the Journal of High Resolution

Chromatography and Chromatography

Communication until 1990, just one

of many publications to which Sandra

contributed in an editorial role,

including but not limited to LCGC,

the Journal of Separation Sciences,

Chromatographia, and the Journal of

Chromatography A.

Sandra and Lee also collaborated

on and alternated as the chair of

the hugely popular International

Symposium on Capillary

Chromatography. Sandra originally took

over the series from Rudolf Kaiser in

1981 and together with Jacques Rijks

and Sorin Trestianu, started the “Riva

Meetings”, which some consider his

most important contribution to capillary

chromatography. “These meetings

were really something very special,”

enthused Ana Maria Costa Freitas of

the University of Évora, Portugal. “The

scientific merit of most of the talks or

even the posters were enormous. They

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Pat Sandra, Deirdre Cabooter, and Gert Desmet.

made the breakthrough of capillary

chromatography.” Sandra was the

chairman of the biannually organized

Riva meeting from 1983 to 2012. In

2012 he invited Prof. Luigi Mondello

from the University of Messina, to

take over the chairmanship. “That

is one thing I would have never

imagined to happen, when I gave my

first contribution at this symposium,”

said Mondello. “I have always

looked up to Pat, and watched very

closely his stellar achievements in

the field of separation science. The

ground-breaking contributions he

made to the field of separation science

have always been inspiring to me,

and I especially appreciated his talent

and willingness to face new analytical

challenges.”

Sandra also spent six years as chair

of the Symposium of Hyphenated

Techniques in Chromatography (HTC),

and those meetings were also the

pivot points for fruitful collaborations.

Gert Desmet recalls how he felt when

Sandra called him on stage to present

him with the HTC award in 2004. “At

the time he was an unreachable hero

for me, but this rapidly changed when

we started working together and I was

able to send some of my students to

his famous Pfizer Analytical Research

Centre in Ghent—first Deirdre

Cabooter and later Ken Broeckhoven,”

said Desmet. This was a very prolific

cooperation, leading to a long string

of co-publications and requiring little

consultation. “One brief meeting every

4 or 5 months, typically ending with Pat

wrapping up the meeting by defining

in a stroke of genius the experimental

details, and we were ready for another

paper,” Desmet recalls, adding that

theory and experiment came together

seamlessly in the work. “Being

novices in the field, we learned the

art of chromatography through this

collaboration,” said Desmet.

Sandra has also served as the

chair of the International Organization

for the Promotion of Microcolumn

Separations; been the chair of the

Cercle de Sciences Analytiques:

Méthodes Séparatives; organized

the highly successful HPLC 2007

in Ghent; been a member of

the committee for Promotion of

Chromatography in Latin-America

(COLACRO); and coordinated the

Tempus programme, which aimed to

modernize the higher education sector

in Central and Eastern European

Countries following the fall of the Berlin

Wall—the programme through which

he met Tadeusz Górecki as well as

Andrei Medvedovici.

Through collaboration, symposium

organization, and his contributions

to journals, Sandra has influenced

the direction of modern separation

science. But perhaps his true legacy

can only be fully understood through

the words of those he has influenced.

Mentor, Friend, ColleagueThrough his career—teaching at

multiple institutions, supporting

conferences, and working in direct

scientific collaborations—Sandra has

created a vast legacy, inspiring and

nurturing others.

Indeed, his penchant for making

himself approachable and sharing

his knowledge unselfishly is an

undeniably admirable trait and one

which has seen him leave an indefinite

impression in fellow scientists.

“Pat and I have enjoyed a strong

mutual trust for each other over

the years. I cannot recall even one

incident when he did not quickly and

wholeheartedly respond to even the

simplest request I made of him,” said

Lee.

“I know we can always count on him.

We can talk whenever we need and he

is always available,” echoed Ana Maria

Costa Freitas, who met Sandra at her

first “Riva Meeting” in 1985.

“It is a privilege to be considered

a friend and it is always a privilege to

know him and to chat with him about

science or in fact anything.”

“Let’s be honest. I was formed as a

researcher of Separation Sciences by

Prof. Pat Sandra. Certainly, we became

friends, but he always remains my

teacher, in the largest sense of the

word,” said Andrei Medvedovici.

He recalls how he felt when leaving

Belgium after his first stay there,

when Sandra gave him a copy of

his book on micellar electrokinetic

chromatography. Sandra signed it for

him, saying, “To my excellent coworker

and friend, always welcome in my

group.” “I kept this book, and sincerely

speaking, I consider these few words

as my true graduation diploma in

chemical research,” said Medvedovici.

“Whereas many people that do not

know Pat see him as the accomplished

scientist and successful entrepreneur,

those that have the fortune to get

personally in touch with him also know

he is a very kind friend and a real

family man,” added Desmet. “One of

my dearest memories is a trip back

from Germany in his stylish Mercedes,

where in the evening hours he was

called, one after the other, by his

two sons and wife, and where I was

privileged to witness how caring and

loving they are with each other,” he

recalled.

Throughout Sandra’s long and

distinguished career he has inspired

and innovated, challenged and

advised, and done so with rare

sincerity and scientific honesty.

His willingness to help those who



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Gert Desmet, Deirdre Cabooter, and Frederic Lynen at HPLC 2014 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

needed it and his passion for his work

culminated in a lifetime of friends,

colleagues, associates, and admirers.

“No assessment of Pat Sandra’s

contribution would be complete

without mentioning the large number

of students and collaborators who

have, under his tutelage, in their own

right become important contributors to

the field,” said de Villiers. “These are

too many to list here, but each of them

I am sure will be as delighted as I was

to hear of the awarding of the LCGC

Lifetime Achievement Award to Pat”

His surprise party in January

2012, when he retired from the

university, provides evidence of

the affection he engendered. “The

party attracted more than a hundred

scientists from all over the world,

despite the impossible snow that day

blocking all traffic in Belgium and the

Netherlands,” remembers Frederic

Lynen. “From the many tributes from

many colleagues during that evening,

it was clear that Pat was and is an

extremely appreciated scientist

worldwide.”

That appreciation of Sandra has

been incredibly evident from the

testimony of those who have engaged

with him professionally and socially

across many decades. To weave his

lifetime of accomplishments into one

final paragraph would not do justice to

Sandra’s achievements. So instead, we

leave you with a final quote from Ana

Maria Costa Freitas: “Chromatography

owes a lot to Pat Sandra.”

Deirdre Cabooter

LCGC ’s 2017 Emerging Leader in

Chromatography, Deirdre Cabooter,

obtained her undergraduate degree

in bioengineering in 2002 from the

University of Antwerp, Belgium.

She then moved to the Free

University of Brussels, in Belgium.

There, she received a master’s

degree in bioengineering, cell, and

gene biotechnology in 2005 and

a Ph.D. in chemical engineering in

2009, both under the supervision

of Gert Desmet. During this time

Cabooter would explore the

possibilities and limitations of the

kinetic plot method for comparing

the kinetic performance of

chromatographic separation methods

and columns.

Desmet clearly remembers when

Cabooter shifted from her master’s

studies to her Ph.D. “From that moment

on, Deirdre went like a whirlwind

through her career, relentless in the

lab, producing and analyzing data

at every moment of the day and the

week,” said Desmet. “She always had

one aim: trying to understand the deep

fundamentals of chromatography.”

After completing her Ph.D.,

Cabooter took up a postdoctoral

position in Desmet’s lab for a year

and a half before working for a year

in the Department of Chemistry and

Polymer Science at Stellenbosch

University in South Africa under the

supervision of André de Villiers. She

has also spent a considerable amount

of time working at the Pfizer Analytical

Research Centre in Ghent. In October

2011, Cabooter took an assistant

professor role in the Department of

Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological

Sciences at the University of Leuven,

Belgium. In October 2016, she was

appointed associate professor in the

same department.



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Since she started working at the

University of Leuven, Cabooter has

taken on several Ph.D. students and

continues to collaborate regularly

with her previous laboratory and

specifically with Gert Desmet. “Deirdre

has become a close friend with whom

it is a privilege to collaborate and

discuss new ideas, and dig deeper

into the secrets of chromatographic

theory,” said Desmet. “The sparkle in

her eyes when she shows me another

pile of unique data collected by one of

her students is maybe one of the most

invaluable souvenirs I will retain from

my career.”

Kinetic StudyCabooter’s research has

encompassed a wide range of

studies, but her work in the kinetic

aspects of chromatographic

performance is particularly

noteworthy. “One of Deirdre’s

greatest contributions in our field

is related to the understanding of

band broadening in chromatography,

and the characterization of column

band spreading using the kinetic

plot methodology,” said Davy

Guillarme, a senior lecturer at the

University of Geneva, Switzerland.

“She was part of Gert’s (Desmet)

group when there was a significant

amount of interest in kinetic plots for

comparing the kinetic performance

of core–shell technology, columns

packed with sub-2-μm particles,

and high-temperature liquid

chromatography. She has done a lot

of work in this field and she is still

involved in this field now.” The work

Cabooter contributed to kinetic plot

theory, the primary focus of Desmet’s

group at that time, was significant.

“Deirdre helped me put the kinetic

plot theory on the map,” Desmet

enthused.

An important aspect of

Cabooter’s research stems

from her approach that adopts

elements of engineering. “Contrary

to the bulk of chromatographic

method development, which has

been, for most of its history, a

trial-and-error process based on

the chromatographer’s experience

and background, Deirdre and her

mentor Gert Desmet have put a lot

of effort, and had many successes,

in the further rationalization of

chromatography and in the true

merging of engineering with

chromatography,” said Frederic

Lynen. “Deirdre has been particularly

instrumental in the development of

predictive tools allowing improved

UHPLC and HPLC data to be obtained

in less analysis time and enabling

higher separations efficiencies to be

reached.” Cabooter’s research not

only calculates the potential of kinetic

plots, but also makes their practical

implementation for genuine analyses

much more accessible to the user.

“A particularly interesting publication

of Deirdre’s is her demonstration of

the use of the kinetic plot method to

reach 100,000 plates in HPLC in an

easily reachable way by, for example,

working at higher temperatures

compared to conventional HPLC,”

added Lynen.

As Cabooter has started up her

research group at the University

of Leuven, she has broadened

her research focus to include

studies related to pharmaceutical

analysis, environmental analysis,

bioanalysis, hydrophilic interaction

liquid chromatography (HILIC), and

reversed-phase LC. In her work, she

has made major breakthroughs by

developing the total pore blocking

method, a technique that allows the

decoupling of extra-particle from

intra-particle contributions. The

technique went on to be strongly

embraced by Fabrice Gritti and

Georges Guiochon. Furthermore,

Cabooter has done a substantial

amount of research into the automatic

coupling of columns. “This offers

many new possibilities in terms

of analysis time gain and method

development,” said Desmet.

“Her current work on selectivity,

where she merges HILIC and

reversed-phase LC into one

conventional HPLC system, with one

pump, is also very interesting” added

Lynen. “It has a lot of potential.”

Underlying her achievements

is Cabooter’s focus and drive to

satisfy her intellectual curiosity. Her

character is best illustrated, Desmet

says, by her three-week stay in the

laboratories of Dionex Amsterdam,

in 2009. “She slept in the guest

apartment situated on the same

floor as the lab, allowing her to work

from 6 am to 11 pm,” he said. “And

obviously, it would not have been

Deirdre if she had not returned from

her mission with a radiant smile and

enough data for yet another paper.”

That drive has also resulted in

a remarkable publication record.

To date, she has 61 peer-reviewed

publications in major scientific

journals and her h-index stands at

an impressive 19. “In terms of

citations, considerable interest has

been shown in her publications,”

said David McCalley, a professor

in bioanalytical science at the

University of the West of England.

Cabooter also became a member of

the editorial board of the Journal of

Chromatography A in 2015.

McCalley also noted her many

talks and excellent presentation

skills. “Professor Cabooter is also

increasingly popular as an invited

speaker at major international

conferences,” he added. “I have

recently heard her presentations

at the HPLC conference in San

Francisco and at the Nordic

Separation Science Society in

Helsinki. Both were presented in a

clear and concise fashion, which

is vital when speaking to diverse

international audiences.”

In addition to her research

credentials, Cabooter has also

taken on responsibilities as an

organizer for the International

Symposium on Hyphenated

Techniques in Chromatography

and Separation Technology (HTC).

Her fellow organizers know her as



Deirdre Cabooter working in her laboratory at the University of Leuven.

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highly energetic and an incredibly

meticulous person. But to Frederic

Lynen, she is a true problem solver.

He cites one particular evening at the

HTC-13 conference as an example,

when the symposium dinner lasted

much longer than anticipated, leading

to significant problems with the

drivers of the hired bus company.

“Deirdre, being the type of person

that she is, then personally made sure

that the buses remained available to

bring all the delegates home safely,”

recounts Lynen. “What makes it even

more impressive is that this took

place in the middle of the dark forests

surrounding Bruges at 2 am on a

January morning,” said Lynen. “She

has since been solving many many

issues regarding the organization of

these conferences,” he added.

The intensity that Cabooter applies

to her work also shows up in her free

time, such as when she makes the

most of her opportunities to travel.

David McCalley recalls how she

took advantage of her trip to the

HPLC conference in San Francisco

last year. “In little over a week’s

stay, she managed to cycle over the

Golden Gate bridge the morning after

her arrival, and then completed a

whirlwind tour of Yosemite National

Park, driving for half the night to reach

the park after the last lectures on the

final day.”

The future is very bright for

Cabooter, and all our interviewees

believe that her influence within

chromatography will continue

to increase. “Deirdre has been

recognized as one of the most

influential people in analytical

sciences in both 2014 and 2016, and

she now has obtained this Emerging

Leader in Chromatography Award,”

said Guillarme. “These recognitions

are very well deserved and I’m sure

they will help to boost her career even

further.”

“I believe Deirdre’s research will

contribute a lot to the development of

in silico controlled chromatographic

methods in the future,” added Lynen.

“Deirdre’s work is going to be a very

important contribution to resolving

the increasingly complex separation

problems of the future,” commented

Monika Dittmann, Principal Scientist

Research and Development, Agilent

Technologies.

As for her mentor, Gert Desmet

predicts a similarly bright future for

Cabooter. “Combining her great

scientific skills with an enormous

range of social skills, there is no

doubt Deirdre will become one of

the leading figures in the field of

chromatography,” he concluded.

References(1) C. Gehrke, R. Wixom, and E. Bayer,

in Chromatography—A Century of

Discovery 1900–2000: The Bridge

to the Sciences/Technology, vol. 64

— Prominent Chromatographers and

Their Research (Elsevier, 2001), pp.

477–495.

(2) R. Dandeneau and E. Zerenner,

HRC&CC 2, 351 (1979).

nominations for future AwardsFor information about how to

nominate a candidate for future LCGC

Lifetime Achievement or Emerging

Leader Awards, please contact

Editorial Director Laura Bush at

[email protected]



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