As it is for most in our industry, summer is traveling and trade show season for the team at CLP. We’ve recently been on the road for the Executive War College conference in New Orleans, and shortly thereafter, the Clinical Lab Management Association (CLMA) show in Tampa, Fla. As always, it was a pleasure to meet with readers and advertisers, and to learn about recent developments and hot topics in clinical diagnostics. And, of course, we’re all setting our sights on the largest meeting of the summer, AACC in Chicago. If you haven’t already, please feel free to get in touch and schedule some time with myself and Associate Editor Stephen Noonoo.

At CLMA, I had the pleasure of meeting with our new LIS expert, Sandy Laughlin, product manager for Antek’s LabDAQ. Please submit questions to Sandy through this web site’s Expert Insight page, where you can also follow her answers. She’s eager to hear from readers, so please ask away! This issue’s Tech Guide features LIS products, so it may provide you with food for thought.

You can read more about what the CLP team was up to at CLMA by checking out our blog at www.clpmag.com/blog/. Stephen and I were making the rounds of booths, both meeting new folks and renewing acquaintances. We received a full tour at Sarstedt, a leader in the European markets with its sample-collection products. It has also brought this product line to the United States, and you can read about its innovative options in this month’s feature on sample handling.

AccuVein was demo’ing its AV300 vein-illumination product, which locates patients’ veins quickly and easily by shining a red light right on the arm. Look for more details in an upcoming product news section. Thermo Scientific was highlighting its anatomic pathology suite of products, Nova Biomedical was featuring its latest creatinine POC from Nova Biomedical, and the Becton Dickinson booth was crowded with attendees looking to learn about experiences with Lean and Six Sigma. I also had the pleasure of meeting David Rhoads of David G. Rhoads Associates—look for coverage of its next release of quality assurance software in CLP this summer—and it was fun to connect with the team at ESA Biosciences, who co-hosted CLP’s first webinar, on vitamin D. If you haven’t already, download and listen to this highly informative discussion.

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Once again, please get in touch prior to AACC—once it gets going, the show will be a whirlwind. But you are always welcome to drop by our booth #4156 and say hello. We look forward to seeing you in Chicago!

Suzanne Clancy, PhD
editor, CLP

(858) 793-9533