Introduction to the Proceedings of the Symposium on Urinary Constituents of Low Molecular Weight

Abstract

IT HAS OFTEN BEEN SAID that all of the concepts necessary for the complete automation of clinical chemistry procedures are already in existence-if we only knew where to look for them! We are now beginning to search for these concepts, as well as to develop new ones that will apply specifically to clinical chemistry. r lie existing analytic technics that are available for routine use in many chemical and biologic laboratories provide one fruitful source. These technics are frequently more accurate, yield a higher resolution, and involve a higher degree of automation than those found in the cliiiical laboratory. A significant effort is now being made to adapt them for clinical research. Other efforts, concerned with new and automated laboratory procedures for tile clinical laboratory, are also being pursued. One of these latter efforts is the Body Fluid Analysis Irogram at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This joint program. under the sponsorship of the National Institute of (ieneral Medical Sciences and the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, is part of the Molecular Anatomy Program (1) at Oak Ridge, in which work is progressmc on the separation and the cataloging of the molecular constituents of human cells and physiologic fluids. Since it is now generally accepted that the majority of human diseases will ultimately be understood at the molecular level, such work should have direct application to the clinical laboratory. The Body Fluid Analysis Program, established after discussions held at the recent conference on Automation in Clinical Laboratories (2), is a multidiscipline effort in which engineers, physical scientists, and life scientists work as a team toward the goal of developing high resolution, automated, analytic systems for body fluids. Such an approach is much like other ellorts at Oak Ridge; that is, many scientific principles and enriueering skills are combined at a single facility to solve complex problems. Since the scope of the iraining and the education of many of the