Microbiology laboratory automation: a coming of age

Historically, microbiology has been considered to be one of the most manual and complex of scientific disciplines and, until recently, few people believed that automation would be used in this discipline – automation of some processes seemed nearly impossible, and it was thought to be too expensive. Today, full automation of microbiological analysis is no longer a distant possibility, as it is starting to be implemented in laboratories around the world.

Case for automation
The prevalence of healthcare-associated infections1 and the emerging drug resistance of bacteria have led to an increased need for rapid microbiological analysis in laboratories. A wide range of technologies, such as immunoassays and molecular diagnostics, has been introduced for faster, more detailed analysis, adding to the complexity of workload. To exacerbate this demand, skilled laboratory scientists are becoming harder to find – for every seven clinical laboratory scientists facing retirement, only two enter the field.2

Automated solutions free biomedical scientists from laborious and repetitive manual processing and give them more time to focus on other tasks that require their professional skills, experience and intellect. Automated systems are able to achieve much greater throughput, as well as ensuring that key laboratory performance attributes (eg data consistency and quality) are maintained at every process stage, using barcoding, robotics and computerisation, and meeting the increased need for improved traceability and reporting in microbiology laboratories.