Historically, the trend toward automation in clinical pathology laboratories has largely bypassed the clinical microbiology laboratory. In this article, we review the historical impediments to automation in the microbiology laboratory and offer insight into the reasons why we believe that we are on the cusp of a dramatic change that will sweep a wave of automation into clinical microbiology lab...

Experimental microbiology in the postgenomic era has survived the first wave of uncertainty: a perspective of being replaced by in silico microbiology. Although it is clear now that experimental science is irreplaceable, we are facing yet another wave: the frustration of having a half million microbial genes in databases but lacking simple ways of getting biologically relevant information. Ther...