01 ABANSI, KEN MYER O.

Title of Article : As the pace of life science R&D accelerates, laboratories face heavy demands to produce timely, accurate results at reduced costs. The solution: automation of lab instruments.(www.sciencemag.org/site/products/labl.xhtml)

With the increasing demands to produce timely and accurate results at reduced costs, automation of laboratory instruments is possibly a solution. It is a strategy to survival in a competitive environment and market. Stephen Oldfield, director of marketing for Molecular Devices Corporation said that what people are wanting is a reduced cost and a high throughput. Automation is said to solve the abovementioned problems through increased productivity via the ability to process larger numbers of samples per unit of time and a reduction in human errors. Recommendations included towards automation are reduction in the amount of reagents used, shift to plates from test tubes, speeding up screening, and the possible use of robotics to substitute automation in the future.

This advancement in laboratory management goes to show responsiveness to the changing demands of time. It is timely to shift to a faster and more efficient way of coming up with results that would give satisfaction to customers’ expectations.

An increasing number of individuals seeking for medical intervention is a manifestation of the great need for automation in laboratories. Automation is advantageous. A reduction in materials wastage is a possible advantage of automation given that smaller amounts of reagents are used and smaller amount of specimens are also required. Repeatability, productivity, efficiency and reproducibility of results are also improved. Although, this move will not solely be of advantage to the laboratory and to the workers. It is difficult to cut cost when a laboratory is using automated machines, considering the fact that these are expensive tools and processes even if you are just testing a single specimen. It is also a little bit impossible at the moment to fully automate a number of tests since only a few number of machines are still developed, thus, the tests performed will also be limited. In fact, accuracy of results will still not be assured with the use of such technology. Definitely, automation will not work without human intervention. Only humans can perform tests that would require visual analysis and comparisons. Analysis in machines is using sensory inputs with limited accuracy.

It is but right to be adaptive to catch up with what is greatly needed, especially in the laboratory setting. The common decision the laboratory managers dwell on is automation which has a “double-sided” effect as mentioned above. Despite all these advancements, it must still be put into consideration to keep the balance. The machine is not always better than the human, so does the human with the machine. Therefore, each must be given importance and consideration for each of them, despite their different capacities, can work together to come up with the good quality of health intervention to people with varying demands and expectations.