The thing about science is that we often can't see the molecules we're working on. We rely on a myriad of assay approaches and analytic techniques to evaluate these molecules or track activity of a biochemical pathway, and protein science is no different. But we have a ton of very cool techniques to capture detailed information about our proteins of interest. X-crystallography? Yes! Show me a snapshot of that protein I've painstakingly produced!!

Size Exclusion Chromatography (SEC) is another method that's incredibly insightful - a glimpse into a protein's soul, you might say. SEC allows you to evaluate the solution behavior of a protein, providing valuable information on it's purity and propensity towards aggregation. It's a critical, decision-making factor in judging quality of your final material. It's also a key metric to track a protein's batch-to-batch variability.

So collect that SEC data!