The M.S. Tswett Chromatography Medal 1979

The M. S. Tswett Chromatography Medals were awarded to P. Flodin and J. O. Porath for the pioneering work in gel permeation chromatography. The presentation was made at the 14th International Symposium on Advances in Chromatography held in Lausanne, Switzerland, September 24-28, 1979.

Per Flodin was born in 1924 in Ljushult, Sweden and studi- ed at the University of Uppsala where he received his Ph.D. in 1962. Between 1950 and 1953, he worked with Professor Tiselius at the Department of Biochemistry and obtained a licentiate degree in 1953. Between 1954 and 1962, he was a research scientist at the pharmaceutical company Pharma- cia AB, in Uppsala. In 1962, he was appointed as the re- search director of Perstorp AB, a chemicals and plastics manufacturing company. In 1972, he was appointed docent (associate professor) at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and in 1977, professor of Polymer tech- nology at Chalmers University of Technology, in G6teborg.

Professor Flodin is the author and coauthor of a number of scientific publications and patents. In 1962, his book on "Dextran Gels and Their Application to Gel Filtration" was published by Pharmacia. He is vice president of the Swedish Chemical Society and a committee member of the Swedish 8oard for Technical Development. He was actively engaged in the foundation of the Swedish Plastics and Rubber Institute and is now a member of its Board. He is a recipient of the Arrhenius medal of the Swedish Chemical Society (1963) and of the gold medal of the Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (1968).

Professor Flodin's major activities in chromatography started in 1956, when jointly with Professor J. Porath, they made the fundamental observations leading to the gel filtration method. He developed the Sephadex range of dextran gels, the Sephadex ion-exchangers, and various other derivatives of dextran gels, e.g. for use in gel chro- matography in nonaqueous media. In methodological studies, he developed experimental techniques and gel types for various applications, such as the separation of small molecules from macromolecules, fractionation of water-soluble oligomers and polymers, and preparative separation of proteins. A qualitative theory of gel filtration and the development of a method for industrial gel filtra- tion are among his achievements. He also has major contri- butions to biochemistry and polymer technology.

Jerker Olof Porath was born in 1921, in Sala, Sweden. He entered the University of Uppsala in 1942, passed his ,,filosofie kandidatexamen" (B.S.) in 1946, and after studies at Stockholm's H6gskola, the "filosofie magister- examen" (M.S.). He obtained the licentiate degree (Ph.D.) at the University of Uppsala, in 1950. He also studied at the Institut for Krebsforschung, in Heidelberg (1950), and at the Hormone Research Laboratory, University of Cali- fornia at Berkeley (1951-1952). In 1957, he received the Swedish doctor's degree (D.Sc).

Dr. Porath was appointed assistant professor at Uppsala University in 1957, a research fellow at the Swedish Natural Science Research Council in 1960 and obtained a personal professorship in 1964. He succeeded Arne Tiselius as Jacobsonian Professor in Biochemistry in 1968.

Professor Porath is the author of a large number of papers in biochemistry and chromatography. He has been visiting professor at San Francisco Medical School and at the Canadian Medical Research Council, in Montreal. He is a member of a number of academies and scientific societies among them the Royal Swedish Society of Science and the Royal Swedish Academy of Science. Professor Porath was awarded the Sixten Heyman's Prize, the Arrhenius Pla- quette (together with P. Flodin), the Gold Medal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering, the Honorary Plaquette of the French Society of Biochemistry, the Bj6rken's Prize and the 1978 Prize Biochemical Analysis of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fLir Klinische Chemie. In 1971, he received a honorary M.D. from the University of Uppsala.

Professor Porath is a pioneer in the application of chromato- graphy in biochemistry and particularly in the use of size- exclusion (gel) chromatography and affinity chromato- graphy.

Chromatographia Vol. 12 No. 10, October 1979 679