It was a great pleasure to meet many of our readers and lab products vendors at the AACC Annual Meeting and Expo in Washington, DC, at the end of July. I had the opportunity to attend many good meals, drop by numerous well-attended booths, and make and renew acquaintances.

Some hot topics emerging from the meeting included vitamin D testing, which has been linked with risk for conditions including heart disease and cancer. The bigger picture of nutritional status testing appears to be gathering steam as well.

Automation continues to be a strong trend, as is integration. At companies such as Siemens, which discussed its corporate strategy at a media breakfast, this means bringing together imaging technology and clinical chemistry under one roof. Other companies, including Beckman Coulter, are integrating chemistry and immunoassay analyzers. Across the board, these and other vendors are working to streamline lab processes, a concept we will continue to explore in the pages of CLP.

I also had the good fortune to attend a luncheon with Cokie Roberts, the well-known political analyst who was presenting the Olympus Partnership Awards. You can read about her thoughts on the health care debate in Inside Track in this issue.

There could never be enough time to meet even a fraction of those attending a show as large as AACC, but I invite you to get in touch with the team at CLP at any time to share your thoughts on the industry. You also can read our impressions of the show at our “blog” at www.clpmag.com/blog. There, you’ll find our associate editor, Judy O’Rourke, and myself posting on the fly as we hustled from meeting to meeting.

A number of you have had the opportunity to meet with or speak to Judy during the past year, as well as during AACC. I’m both sorry and pleased to announce that Judy has moved on to another position with Ascend Media; we’ll miss her greatly but wish her all the best in her future endeavors. I’m very happy to introduce you to our new associate editor, Stephen Noonoo, who joined our team this month. I’m sure you’ll enjoy working with Stephen as we all move forward to bring you news of the industry.

Suzanne Clancy, PhD
editor, CLP

(858) 793-9533