Adventures in the matrix

Abstract

Decades before they would be lionized by the rise of glycobiology and demonized by the Atkins diet, carbohydrates were quietly doing wonders for biological research. In 1955, Oliver Smithies published a groundbreaking Biochemical Journal article, introducing the world to gel electrophoresis, using potato starch–based slabs—a considerable step forward from the filter paper–based approaches that had prevailed previously.