By immobilizing proteins to polymer nanoparticles or polymer/inorganic hybrid nanoparticles (such as polymer-stabilized iron oxide nanoparticles), proteins or their affinity ligands can be separated from complex solutions by applying magnetic fields or centrifugation. Lipase attached to iron oxide nanoparticles maintained 85% biological activity after 30 reaction and separation cycles.  
As the appropriate target is combined with magnetic nanoparticles, the selected target can be magnetically separated directly from natural biological fluids, which offers a fast, gentle, extensible, and easy to automate separation technique. The simplicity of magnetic separation has been applied in a number of disciplines, including mineral processing wastewater treatment, molecular biology, cell sorting, and clinical diagnostics.