Once again the LabAutomation conference has provided many of us with a welcome respite from winter and a chance to feel young again amidst the populace of Palm Springs! Our technical field and the conference continue to grow and thrive! This year saw a record attendance of 4670 from some 40 countries. The event continued the tradition of presenting the top 100 podium presentations on laboratory automation, as well as 189 posters, 18 short courses and 21 industry-sponsored workshops. It has truly become an event with more to offer than one can absorb, so a return visit is almost mandatory to stay abreast of new developments.

Speaking of new developments, the acquisition of Velocity 11 by Agilent was announced at the opening evening (sponsored by V11). Thus continues the recent trend previously noted by The Lab Man of consolidation among the vendor community. The Agilent spokesman indicated that his company was very glad to be entering the laboratory automation market and I'm sure that feeling is shared among the user community. Those who have been around as long as The Lab Man will remember, however, that Agilent in its former incarnation as Hewlett Packard was for a while a laboratory automation player with its Automated Chemical Systems line of products, including the ORCA robot. What comes around goes around! Change is often circular.

Even though the prevailing trend in the vendor community is one of consolidation, there are still many new providers entering the market. The ALA continued its program to support and highlight new companies via Innovation AveNEW, which provided booth space to eight startup companies. It should be noted that Velocity 11 got their jumpstart years ago when the conference provided them such a booth, so this program does pay dividends to our community. Innovation is what these young companies are all about, as clearly shown by the fact that two of the three New Product Awards (NPA) went to very young companies. The NPA winners were:

Qiagen, for their QIAsymphony, a highly integrated and user friendly bench top workstation aimed at the DNA and RNA purification and amplification market. The device is highly modular to allow ease of reconfiguration for a broad application range.

Viaflow, for their Vision Pipetting System, a handheld pipette system that finally brings these devices into the wireless and iPod age. It has a very familiar scroll-wheel type control, a full color display for menus and images, and an optional Bluetooth interface for data transfer.

Formulatrix, for The Formulator, a next-generation automated liquid handler using a microfluidic chip to measure and dispense discrete volumes of liquid. The chip has 96 outputs and two metering chambers of 0.2 and 3.0 microliters volume.

The ALA's recognition of innovation is not limited to the exhibit floor. The $10,000 Innovation Award is given each year to the presenter best demonstrating vision, originality, seminal technology, applications and strategies. That award went to James Landers, Ph.D., University of Virginia, for his podium presentation, "A Simplified Microfluidic Device for Ultrafast Genetic Analysis With Sample-In/Answer-Out Capability: Application to T-cell Lymphoma Diagnosis." The ALA offers full travel support awards to students presenting posters and a $1000 award is given to the top student poster. This year the winner was Nicole Tolan, Michigan State University, for her poster titled, "Development of a High-Throughput Microfluidic Array for Detecting Multiple Metabolites From Blood Components to Determine Drug Efficacy and Mechanisms of Action".

Other quick impressions:

The Lab Man found it fascinating to watch the mind of a Nobel Laureate, Dr. K. Barry Sharpless, at work during his plenary address.

Dr. Henry Chesbrough, University of California, Berkley, spoke about changes in the path to innovation and praised the efforts in that regard of Stanford University as the "2nd most prestigious academic institution in California".

Riding a Segway is not only fun, but a real education in how original thinking can lead to devices that are engineered in new and amazingly simple and intuitive ways.

The visiting FIRST students (see previous blog) were an amazingly enthusiastic and bright bunch. We read much about the demise of high-technology education in our country, but you certainly wouldn't know it talking to these kids!

Please check out the podcasts recorded "live" on the exhibit floor at the conference! And PLEASE enter some comments to let The Lab Man know how he's doing!

Until next time,

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto