Automation: its introduction to the field of blood group serology.

I M M U N O H E M A T O L O G Y , V O L U M E 1 7, N U M B E R 4, 2 0 0 1 Automation of blood typing was a thing of the future when I joined the American Red Cross (ARC) in Los Angeles, California, in 1960. Automation had found its way into a variety of medical laboratory procedures over the previous decade, but blood typing somehow had escaped. For each bottle of labeled blood released from a routine blood bank, the donors’ cells and sera had to be tested using sera and cells of known types. Dozens of methodical, repetitious, time-consuming— not to mention boring—hand manipulations made automation’s time long past due. Over the course of the next several years, not only was the need for automation met but a valuable tool was born, which opened up avenues of research applicable in both applied and basic medicine.