Robotic elements in laboratory medicine are not new. However, much of this technology has advanced rapidly in the last few years, while staying inside larger instrument and track systems that have disguised its evolution. In about the year 1990, clinical laboratory professionals started hearing about “total laboratory automation,” said Robin Felder, PhD, professor of pathology and associate director of clinical chemistry and toxicology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville. But this hoped-for eventuality hasn’t quite happened, at least not yet.