The Golden Age Revisited via Estradiol and LC-MS/MS

About 30 years ago, I joined the field of clinical chemistry and have been enjoying the profession ever since. At first, it seemed that I had missed the “golden age” of clinical chemistry, when chemists used centrifugal analyzers to do all kinds of interesting analyses. But I was pleasantly surprised when I was introduced to the Abbott TDx analyzer and its fluorescence polarization immunoassay methodology. It was exciting to see a real-world clinical application of a cutting-edge technique with which I had some familiarity from my graduate school research in studies on macromolecule dynamics. Such a methodological application impressed on me that the difference between basic science and applied science lies in the focus of interest and not in the technology. Over …