Lecture I: General Structures and Theory

The types of bioassay with which I am concerned are experimental procedures for estimating the biological potency of a material such as a therapeutic drug or pesticide. They are used either because chemical or physical analysis is inadequate to assess a specific biological potency (as is typically the case with materials that are themselves biological in origin) or because, as compared with chemical analysis and in relation to practical requirements of potency estimation, the assay has advantages of speed, cost, or other important features.