Abstract
“Is it time for a formal course of study in laboratory automation?”
The practice of laboratory automation sits at an intersection of many roads that lead to diverse disciplines. Within any automation project team, it is likely that you'll find professionals with backgrounds as varied as biology, engineering, computer science, electronics, and more. You can see evidence of this in the lecture halls and on the exhibit floor at our annual LabAutomation conferences.
If you ask a member of a lab automation project team “What are you?”, you'll get answers like “I'm a chemist” or “I'm a mechanical engineer.” Rarely will you hear “I'm a lab automation specialist.” Why is this? Our field has matured dramatically since its birth in the early 1980s. It has permeated labs at institutions with as few as a handful of people to labs at large multinational organizations, from research through manufacturing, and from food and fragrances to pharmaceuticals. Organizational groups devoted entirely to the practice of laboratory automation abound throughout industry, academics, and the government. Why do these same professionals, when asked how they identify themselves, provide answers other than laboratory automation specialist? I believe the answer lies in training. If you trained as a chemist, and earned a degree in chemistry, then you will always identify yourself as a chemist. The same argument holds for the other disciplines that one can study in colleges and graduate schools.
Do laboratory automation professionals have an identity problem? I am starting to think that we do. How can we solve this problem? If my suspicion is true, the solution lies in training. A training program for laboratory automation specialists that results in a certificate for achieving a certain level of proficiency may be the answer. Is it time for a formal course of study in laboratory automation? What do you think?
Please e-mail your thoughts to me at executive.
Sincerely,
