Important characteristics of media for size exclusion chromatography include particle size, pore volume, sorptive properties and matrix rigidity. However, the single most decisive parameter is the optimization of the selectivity to cope with the demands of high resolution separations. Whereas traditionally media are manufactured to encompass a broad separation range we now see a focus to a few key applications. These include a renewed interest in separation of smaller macromolecules, e.g. peptides and protein fragments and in dedicated separations such as monoclonal antibodies from growth media additives. The increase in selectivity may be obtained by selective grafting of polymers to reduce accessibility of pores to a small size range of solutes and in principle mimic the functionality of a single pore size support. The properties of such a medium designed for aqueous size exclusion chromatography, Superdex, is reviewed to elucidate the effect of important characteristics.By definition, aqueous size exclusion chromatography is carried out using a porous support. The molecules are separated due to the varying degrees of steric exclusion from the pore volume as caused by different molecular sizes of the solutes. This will result in the molecules being eluted from the column in order of decreasing size. Furthermore, the separation will only take place over an elution volume corresponding to the pore volume. Thus, the effective separating volume in aqueous size exclusion is small as compared to adsorptive techniques (i.e. solutes will ideally only be eluted within one column volume). In preparative purifications this limitation is generally of little importance since the desired separation is achieved through employing a ge)l medium with a suitable selectivity. Also for analytical applications where one component is of major interest it is often possible to find a gel of matching selectivity. However, the analysis of broad molar mass distributions may demand a wide separation range to encompass the whole distribution and this may be obtained by