Established in 1989
The International Symposia on Field- and Flow-Based Separations have been held in about 18 month intervals since the first International Symposium on Field-Flow Fractionation (FFF) in 1989, Salt Lake City, USA, established by J. Calvin Giddings. Through the continuous efforts of the past twenty symposia held in Europe and USA, this symposium series has offered FFF researchers the opportunity to discuss the latest achievements and applications in all aspects of FFF related research. In 2007, the symposia were expanded to include all field- and flow-based separations.
The Steering Board for International Symposia on Field- and Flow-Based Separations (SBFFF) is pleased to open a permanent website for the International Symposium on FFF. This website is aimed not only to disseminate information on FFF symposia and events, but to encourage the growth of FFF in innovative research fields and the mutual collaborations among FFF researchers around the world. The SBFFF will maintain the tradition of this symposium as an important international meeting for researchers who are active in developing field- and flow-based separations including fundamental theory, instrumental developments, hyphenation of FFF with various analytical platforms, and a wide variety of applications.
Steering Board Members
Albena Lederer received her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in 1999 from the Max-Planck-Institute of Polymer Research Mainz and the University Mainz and her habilitation degree in Physical Chemistry in 2010 from the Technishe Universität Dresden. Currently she is the head of the Center Macromolecular Structure Analysis at the Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden (IPF), Germany and holds the SASOL Chair in Analytical Polymer Science at Stellenbosch University (SU), South Africa. She is the head of the joint IPF-SU research group Polymer Separation. Her research interests are in the field of polymer analysis with special focus on advanced separation and scattering techniques. Her current activities are related to the nanostructural aspects of multifunctional macromolecules and natural polymers, novel separation techniques and intermolecular interactions of complex synthetic and biofunctional architectures, and in situ characterization of responsive polymer systems.
Bruce K. Gale, received his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from Brigham Young University in 1995 and his PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Utah in 2000. He was an assistant professor of Biomedical Engineering at Louisiana Tech University before returning to the University of Utah in 2001 where he is now Chair and a professor of Mechanical Engineering. He is currently Director of the Utah State Center of Excellence for Biomedical Microfluidics, a center devoted to research and commercialization activities around microfluidic devices. His primary interests include solving medical, biology, and chemistry problems using a variety of microfluidic approaches to complete complex and challenging medical and biological assays. Specifically, he is working to develop a microfluidic toolbox and approaches for the rapid design, simulation, and fabrication of devices with medical and biological applications. The ultimate goal is to develop platforms for personalized medicine, which should allow medical treatments to be customized to the needs of individual patients. As an outgrowth of his work, 5 companies have been formed and he maintains a role at each.
Wei Gao is a Principal Research Scientist in Analytical Science, Corporate Research and Development, at Dow Inc. She received her BS degree from Fudan University and PhD in Polymer Chemistry and Physics from Peking University. She then worked as a postdoctoral fellow and an Associate Professor in the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Employment at the NSF-I/UCRC center for Biocatalyisis and Bioprocessing of Macromolecules at Polytechnic University (Now NYU Tandon School of Engineering) followed in 2000, and in 2005 she became a Research Assistant Professor. In 2006, Wei joined Rohm and Haas/Dow. She intensively works on polymer and particle characterization, the synthesis−structure−property relationship of polymeric and colloidal systems, and sustainable polymers. She has published over 30 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters, edited one book, and has more than 20 patents and patent applications. She has organized American Chemical Society (ACS) symposia in the areas of separation and characterization of macromolecules and particles, polymer sciences for everyday things, polymer colloids, and industrial innovation of polymer science. She is a lifetime member of Chinese American Chemical Society (CACS) member. She also served on the scientific program committee for the GPC2015 conference and the steering board member for international symposium on Field- and Flow-Based Separations (FFF2018 and FFF2022). She was the recipient of the NOVA Innovation Award from Rohm and Haas Company (2008), US EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards (2003 and 2013), Vernon A. Strenger Scientists’ Award from Dow (2019), and ACS Polymer Chemistry Division (POLY) fellow (2021).
Prof. Dr. Michael Maskos, graduate chemist, heads the Fraunhofer Institute for Microengineering and Microsystems IMM, Mainz, Germany, as executive director since 2018 and in parallel was appointed as a full professor at the Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz in the field of Chemical Process Engineering / Microfluidics in 2011. Before heading the Fraunhofer Institute, he was CEO of the Institut für Mikrotechnik Mainz GmbH (IMM) since 2011. Maskos obtained several scholarships and awards (e.g. Research Award of the Boehringer-Ingelheim Foundation, Germany; research scholarship of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina (visiting scientist at McGill University, Montreal, Canada); and Literature Prize of the German Chemical Industry for the textbook “Polymers: Synthesis, Characteristics and Applications”). He additionally graduated at the Helmholtz-Academy of Young Researchers in Scientific Management and serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief for “Microsystem Technologies” (Springer Nature).
As physical chemist his research areas are amphiphilic polymers and nanoparticles – mostly in solution – and their characterization by light scattering and field-flow fractionation. In parallel, he works in the fields of microtechnology, microfluidics and chemical microreaction technology.
Myeong Hee Moon received his B.S. in chemistry from Yonsei University in 1987, and Ph.D. from University of Utah in 1991 under the prof. Calvin J. Giddings. He got his first position at Dept. of chemistry, Kangnung National University in 1994, moved to Pusan National University in 1999, and he is now at Dept, of Chemistry, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea since 2003. His research has been focused on developing methodology in field-flow fractionation (FFF) for the separation and characterization of biological macromolecules. Efforts were made to develop various FFF channel systems such as frit-inlet asymmetrical flow FFF, hollow-fiber flow field-flow fractionation, multidimensional separation techniques using isloelectric focusing and asymmetrical FlFFF (IEF-AF4) for protein separation, and miniaturized AF4 for direct lipidomic analysis with ESI-MS/MS. His research interests also include lipidomic analysis for the study of disease related biomarkers by utilizing on-line or off-line hyphenation of FlFFF with nanoflow LC-ESI-MS/MS.
Dr. William C. Smith (Billy), is working at U.S. Food and Drug Administration with Dr. Xiaoming Xu in the Division of Product Quality Research working on complex drug formulations from emulsions and injectables to implantable polymeric devices. His research focusses on the physicochemical characterization of nano- and micro-scale materials and the development and validation of methods for macromolecular and particle interactions.
Billy received his Ph.D. in 2019 from the Colorado School of Mines under Prof. S. Kim R. Williams, in applied chemistry. The emphasis of his Ph.D. was the development of thermal field-flow fractionation for the characterization of hybrid colloidal nanomaterials and polymers with complex architectures. In 2017, Billy was a guest researcher at the Leibniz-Institute for Polymer Research (IPF) in Dresden, Germany under Prof. Albena Lederer investigating novel hyperbranched polyethylenes and polyesters. He received his Bachelor of Science in chemistry from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington in 2012.
Graduate from Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Toulouse in 1996, Dr. Frédéric Violleau obtained a PhD from the Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse in 2000. Professor at the PURPAN School of Engineering since 2003, Dr. Frédéric VIOLLEAU is currently Deputy Director of Research at EI PURPAN. As part of his research activities, he is the founder and scientific leader of the Toulouse FFF Center (TFFFC), the only platform in Europe equipped with all FFF techniques. Dr Frédéric VIOLLEAU has been invited researcher at Laboratory for Advanced Separations Technologies, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, USA (5 weeks in 2013) – Pr. Kim S. R. Williams and at Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science, University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch, South Africa (2 weeks in 2019) – Pr. Harald Pasch.
TFFFC interested in developing new analytical approaches using FFF techniques for biomacromolecules, polymers and self-assemblies characterization. Works currently carried out are particularly focus on the determination of the size distribution of milk proteins, high molar masses, polyelectrolytes, self-assembled systems used as vectors of active substances, monoclonal antibodies for exemple. The TFFFC platform collaborates with many companies and laboratories in France and worldwide.
Kim R. Williams is a Professor of Chemistry at the Colorado School of Mines, Research-Advising Faculty in the Materials Science program, and Faculty in the Quantitative Biosciences and Bioengineering program. Her work with field-flow fractionation started with her postdoctoral at the University of Utah with the late J. Calvin Giddings. Her current research program can be broadly classified as separation science of nanometer to micrometer-size species. This includes a focus on developing field-flow fractionation (FFF) with light scattering and mass spectrometry approaches to simultaneously separate and characterize complex multi-component systems. More specifically, her research group has introduced new methods to measure distributions in nanoparticle surface composition and shape as well as difficult to analyze polymer attributes such as architecture and number of chain ends. Applications extend to materials for renewable energy systems and membrane, biotherapeutic proteins, and biological particles such as lipoproteins and extracellular vesicles for disease diagnostics.
Professor Williams is the recipient of a 2017-2019 Fulbright Flex Award to Germany, a three-time recipient of the Colorado School of Mines Outstanding Graduate Professor Award, and the 2020 W. M. Keck Mentorship for Faculty Award. She is the co-editor of a book titled Field-Flow Fractionation in Biopolymer Analysis and has taught particle sizing workshops worldwide. She co-chaired the International FFF Steering Board (2013-2020) and has served on workshops and subcommittees of the National Academies of Science, the National Nanotechnology Initiative, and the National Science Foundation in the United States.
Prof. Wenwan Zhong joined University of Science and Technology of China as a professor in January 2024. She obtained her B.S. in Applied Chemistry from University of Science and Technology of China, and Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Iowa State University (USA). After working at Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA) as a postdoc, she started her independent academic career in University of California, Riverside (UCR) in 2006. She was promoted to Association Professor with Tenure in 2012 and became a full professor in 2016. She also served as the Director of the Environmental Toxicology Graduate Program at UCR from 2018 to 2023. She received the CAREER award from National Science Foundation in 2011, and UCR Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research in 2019. Dr. Zhong’s research is devoted to developing innovative analytical techniques to advance our understanding on how biomolecules function, to improve disease diagnosis and treatment, and to assess the potential impacts from exposure to environmental pollutants. Her group employs synthetic receptors, functional nucleic acids, and nanomaterials, for target recognition and signal amplification; and also uses open-channel separation such as capillary electrophoresis and flow field-flow fractionation, optical spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry, to assist with marker discovery and analysis.
https://faculty.ustc.edu.cn/zhongwenwan/en/index.htmhttps://faculty.ucr.edu/~wenwanz
Lars Nilsson received his PhD from Lund University in 2007 with a thesis on macromolecular emulsifiers. After a few years in industry he returned to Lund University and becames full professor in formulation technology in 2020. His research focus is on applied colloid chemistry and formulation technology as well as development and application of AF4 methodology for the separation and characterization of biomacromolecules and nanoparticles within the life sciences.
Dr. Mohammed Baalousha obtained his PhD. in 2006 from the University of Bordeaux, France. Between 2006 and 2013, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. He joined the University of South Carolina in 2014. He teaches and conducts research in the broad field of Environmental Health Sciences, with projects related to environmental fate and effects engineered nanomaterials and nanoplastics and the applications of engineered nanomaterials. He has raised over $3M in research funding and has published over 80 peer reviewed journal papers. He has served as the president of the Carolinas Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Chapter.
https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/public_health/faculty-staff/baalousha_mohammed.php
Previous SBFFF Members
- Ron Beckett, Monash University, Australia
- Karin Caldwell, Uppsala University, Sweden
- Francesco Dondi, University of Ferrara, Italy
- Seungho Lee, Hannam University, Korea
- Martin Schimpf, Boise State University, USA
- Michel Martin, École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la Ville de Paris, France
- Atitaya Siripinyanond, Mahidol University, Thailand
- Karl-Gustav Wahlund, University of Lund, Sweden
- P. Stephen Williams, Cleveland Clinic, USA
- Mauricio Hoyos, National Center for Scientific Research, Paris, France
- Vincent A. Hackley, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Maryland, USA
Young Scientists
We are a committee of highly motivated young scientists (FFF experts) supporting the SB-FFF and updating worldwide network platform with modern communication instruments (in coordination with SB-FFF)
Our aims are:
- increase the visibility of FFF world-wide,
- expand the FFF network between scientists, users and interested people with potential involvement of industry users,
- offer online activities on the fffseparation.net platform such as seminars or Q&A sessions, and
- facilitate a straight-forward knowledge exchange for both FFF beginners and experts.
Susi graduated in biochemical engineering in Dresden in 2006. Afterwards, she wrote her doctoral thesis in the polymer separation field, entitled “Modern fractionation techniques for branched polymers”, at the Technical University Dresden and IPF. Since then, Susi has been a member of the Polymer Separation Group, and established the AF4 technique at the IPF, where she’s leading the FFF group today. She has further dealt with the application and development of AF4 with multidetection systems. Susi is particularly interested in the physicochemical and in-depth characterization of polymer-protein conjugates, complex synthetic and natural (bio-)nanostructures, and molecular interactions. She has specific expertise in the field of conformation analysis of biomacromolecules.
Claudi is an analytical chemist with expertise in separation sciences. In 2017 she received her PhD from the Department of Food Technology, Engineering and Nutrition from Lunds University, Sweden, for her work on investigating the connection between the cereal dietary fiber β-glucan and human health using AF4 with multi detection. After her appointment as Inclusive Excellence Postdoctoral Fellow at Santa Clara University, CA, USA, Claudi joined the Barron Lab at the School of Medicine, Bioengineering at Stanford University. Currently, Claudi is a Staff Scientist in the group with a focus on the molecular interactions of the human antimicrobial peptide LL-37 with different biomolecules. Her main interest in research is investigating different kinds of biological (macro)molecules such as carbohydrates, peptides or nucleic acids on a molecular level using separation sciences and light scattering techniques. Claudi is also the managing editor of Chromatographia (Springer).
Alina obtained her PhD in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Barcelona, Spain, with a thesis on “Analysis and characterization of fullerene nanoparticles.” She is currently an assistant professor in the analytical chemistry group at the Faculty of Science, University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the development of AF4 with multi-detection and online hyphenation with high-resolution mass spectrometry. Alina has a particular interest in developing dedicated methods to study nanoplastics, aiming to understand their fate in the environment, societal impacts, and interactions with key biomacromolecules relevant to human health.
Marie has a solid educational background in chemisty. She completed her engineering studies at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Lille from 2012 to 2015, which followed two years of preparatory classes at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Rennes from 2010 to 2012. In her professional career, Marie has consistently demonstrated her expertise in research and development. She joined the Ecole d’Ingénieurs de Purpan in 2017 and since 2022, she has been leading the TFFFC platform. She is knowledgeable about all types of FFF and has already analyzed countless different types of samples.
Jérémie, Research scientist at SINTEF, has a PhD in analytical chemistry and has extensive experience in the physico-chemical characterization of nanoparticles with wide expertise in drug delivery systems. Specialist in field flow fractionation (AF4) instrument and currently working on RNA-LNP design, production and quality control, Jérémie also has expertise in the standardization of methods from the lab to the standardization bodies.
Valentina is Tenure-Track Researcher and Assistant Professor at the University of Bologna (Chemistry Department), where she coordinates the research activities of the Analytical Methods for Nano and Biosciences group. Her core research lines focus on FFF-multidetection to characterize and profile biological samples, enhancing data analysis through FFF-chemometrics to model and understand colloidal profiles. Valentina also involved in instrumental advancement and prototyping; she is co-owner of the academic spinoff byFlow srl, where she previously served as president and CEO.
Billy is a Research Scientist in the Office of Product Quality working on complex drug formulations from topicals to injectables and implantable polymeric devices. Billy runs the OPQR Micromeritics “Particle Size” Lab focusing on the physicochemical characterization of nano- and micro-scale materials to support regulatory assessment and review, and evaluation of drug product quality. Billy received his B.S. degree in Chemistry from the Evergreen State College before finishing his Ph.D. in 2019 from the Colorado School of Mines under Dr. Kim R. Williams, in analytical chemistry, focusing on the development of advanced separations techniques for the characterization of complex polymers and colloidal nanomaterials.
Zanelle obtained her PhD in Polymer Science from Stellenbosch University. Her research interests encompass the development of advanced multidimensional analytical techniques for the comprehensive characterisation of both synthetic and natural polymers. She has experience in method development for column- and channel-based separation techniques. In 2021, Zanelle joined the Polymer Separation Group at the Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e.V. (IPF) as a postdoctoral researcher, performing the in-depth characterisation of complex synthetic and natural (bio-) nanostructures, with a particular focus on their application in the treatment of malaria. Currently, she is a member of the Stellenbosch University giving lectures in Organic Chemistry.