LCGC Announces the 2021 Winners of the Lifetime Achievement and Emerging Leader in Chromatography Awards

LCGC Announces the 2021 Winners of the Lifetime Achievement and Emerging Leader in Chromatography Awards

LCGC, the leading resource for separation scientists, is proud to announce that Paul Haddad and Erik L. Regalado are the winners of the 14th annual LCGC Lifetime Achievement and Emerging Leader in Chromatography Awards, respectively. Haddad and Regalado will be honored in a symposium as part of the technical program at the Pittcon 2021 virtual conference in March 2021.

The Lifetime Achievement Award

The Lifetime Achievement in Chromatography Award honors an outstanding professional for a lifetime of contributions to the advancement of chromatographic techniques and applications.

Haddad, the 2021 winner, is an Emeritus Distinguished Professor at the University of Tasmania, Australia. He is best known for his research on the theory, mechanism, and applications of ion chromatography, and computerized approaches to method development.

His work has focused on analytical separation science in liquid phases, with particular emphasis on the separation and quantification of ionic species. A large body of his research has centered on the separation mechanisms and methods of detection of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), ion chromatography (IC), capillary electrophoresis (CE), and capillary electrochromatography (CEC), with a view to improving fundamental understanding and to apply this understanding to the development of new chromatographic and electrophoretic methods. This work has involved making detailed measurements of the retention or migration of analytes in the desired system to derive mathematical models that describe these observations, and to use the mathematical models to devise strategies for computer-assisted optimization of separations for particular applications. Other major themes of his work include the investigation and manipulation of separation selectivity, studying potentiometric detection using reactive metallic electrodes, and the separation of complexed metal ions and sample handling methods.

Haddad served as the foundational director of the Australian Centre for Research on Separation Science (ACROSS), which he established in 2001. ACROSS is recognized worldwide as a leading center of research excellence in separation science. Over the past 19 years the center has been responsible for the publication of more than 1150 refereed papers, graduating 120 PhD students, and presenting more than 1600 oral papers or posters at international scientific meetings. In 2006 he established the Pfizer Analytical Research Centre (PARC), a multimillion dollar research center funded by Pfizer.

Haddad is the author of 585 publications, encompassing 13 books, monographs, or special issues of journals, 33 book chapters, 533 journal articles, and 8 patents, for a total of >14,000 literature citations and an h index of 59 (including books). He is the author of the acclaimed reference text, “Ion Chromatography: Principles and Applications,” which has been cited more than 700 times. He has given more than 800 talks, including 140 plenary and keynote lectures.

Haddad has served as an editor of the Journal of Chromatography A and of Analytica Chimica Acta and as a contributing editor of the Encyclopedia of Analytical Chemistry, and Trends in Analytical Chemistry. He is a current member of the editorial boards of Journal of Chromatography A and Electrophoresis, and several other journals.

Haddad was named a University of Tasmania Distinguished Professor and an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow. He was also named a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Federation of Asian Chemical Societies.

Key international awards he has received include the American Chemical Society (ACS) Award in Chromatography in 2013, the Marcel Golay Award in 2011, the CASSS Award in 2018, the Desty Memorial Lectureship in 2011, the AJP Martin Gold Medal of the Chromatographic Society in 2002, and the Royal Society of Chemistry Analytical Separation Methods Award and Medal in 2003. He was the first Australian to receive each of these international awards. Key national awards include an Australian Museum Eureka Prize in 2019, the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) Applied Research Medal in 2010; the RACI H.G. Smith Medal in 2007, the RACI Leighton Memorial Medal in 2020, the Federation of Asian Chemical Societies (FACS) Foundation Lectureship Award in 2001, and the Royal Society of Chemistry Australasian Lectureship Award in 2001.

The Emerging Leader Award

The Emerging Leader in Chromatography Award recognizes the achievements and aspirations of a talented young separation scientist who has made strides early in his or her career toward the advancement of chromatographic techniques and applications.

Regalado, the 2021 winner, received his PhD in chemistry in 2011 at the University of Havana, in Cuba, in collaboration with the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis in France. He is currently a Principal Scientist in the Analytical Research & Development department of Merck Research Laboratories, where he leads the Method Screening and Purifications group. His research focuses on analytical and preparative enabling technologies that accelerate development of new pharmaceuticals, including automated method screening, multidimensional chromatography, high-throughput analysis, and ultrafast and computer-assisted separations.

Regalado recently introduced the concept of automated multicolumn two-dimensional liquid chromatography (2D-LC) screening for easy selection of stationary and mobile-phase conditions in both dimensions. He has also introduced the concept of chaotropic effects in sub- and supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC). This new strategy has enabled Regalado’s group at Merck to deliver highly pure cyclic peptides at the kilogram scale, something unprecedented in purification laboratories. In addition, the concept has extended the reach of SFC to molecules that were previously considered out of the scope of the technique. Other major themes of his work include advanced reaction monitoring of pharmaceutical processes and the deployment of new approaches combining SFC with photodiode array detection and mass spectrometry as a framework for impurity fate and purge studies.

Regalado also has become a leader among both academic and industry researchers in the development of universal chromatographic methods for use in the research and development of new drug substances—an approach that is transforming analysis in many pharmaceutical laboratories. He has also been involved in advancing the development of ultrafast chiral chromatography, as well as pioneering its introduction to high-throughput enantiopurity analysis and comprehensive 2D-LC workflows. Very recently, Regalado’s team introduced multifactorial peak crossover (MPC) in analytical and preparative chromatography, a new software-based technique that enables convenient switching of the elution order of target analytes to gain large chromatographic productivity increases for preparative purifications, as well as substantial improvements of the signal-to-noise ratio for trace analysis.

In total, he has 90 publications and 2 patents, for a total of 2260 literature citations and an h index of 28. He has given more than 50 oral and poster presentations at scientific conferences.

Regalado has received numerous awards, including, among others, the ACS Young Investigator Award; the Merck Green & Sustainable Science Symposium Award; a Merck Research Laboratories Innovation Award; the postdoctoral HPLC Travel Grant; a MRL Postdoc Publication Award; the Cuban National Academy of Sciences Award (twice); Cuba’s Environmental Agency Award (twice); the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) Fellowship; the Phytochemical Society of Europe Award; the University of Havana Award; two Boehringer Ingelheim Funds Fellowships; a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Research Grant; and a UNESCO Fellowship.

Visit the LCGC website or information about past LCGC award winners or for information on how to nominate a candidate for the 2022 lifetime achievement or emerging leader award.