Here we review key applications of separation technology in applied biology. We first sketch out the field as a whole, but then narrow our scope to the processing of fermentation products, particularly to high-value biologicals such as proteins and nucleotides. We go on to provide a qualitative overview describing the importance and general nature of this large field, major trends, and the strategies that have proven most fruitful in evolving effective separation and purification processes. We then give a detailed description of individual separations equipment and the principles governing their operation. We concentrate throughout on making the available literature accessible to the reader; we provide what is hoped to be a representative set of basic references. However, these references, in turn, include some that suggest promising new developments as well as a number of more specialized reviews. We hope that our overall result provides the reader with access to the most relevant literature. (C) 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.