AI ML Now: Gert Desmet on the Future of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Separation Science

AI ML Now is a new video interview series from LCGC International that will explore how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are reshaping separation science, featuring interviews with researchers who are advancing this constantly-evolving field.

In the first episode of the series, Gert Desmet of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels,Belgium discusses where AI and ML currently stand in separation science in a video interview conducted at the ISC 2026 conference in Prague, which took place in Prague from 6–10 September 2026.

Desmet began the interview by assessing the current state of the field before addressing some of the most common misconceptions about what AI and ML can (and cannot) do for chromatographers. He then evaluated if separation science is particularly amenable or poorly suited, to these data-driven AO/ML approaches. The conversation then turned to whether research in this area could move away from “black-box” AI towards physics-informed and chemically informed machine learning, which builds established theory into the models.

In Part Two, Gert Desmet answered the following questions:

* What makes separation science particularly well suited—or poorly suited—to AI and machine learning?

• Are we going to see a shift from “black-box” AI towards physics-informed and chemically informed machine learning?

Watch the second part of the interview here:

Biography

Gert Desmet has a master’s degree in chemical engineering and obtained his PhD in chemical engineering (fermentation technology) from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Brussels, Belgium, where he is currently a full professor in chemical engineering and where he was the head of the Department of Chemical Engineering from 2008 until 2020. In 2012-2015, he was the vice-dean of the Faculty of Sciences and Bioengineering. His research focuses on the miniaturization of separation methods and on the investigation and modeling of flow effects in chromatographic systems. He recently guest-edited an LCGC International supplement on Advances in (U)HPLC and is an active member of the LCGC International editorial advisory board (EAB).