ABSTRACT
The medical diagnostic industry has been both innovator and recipient of products born of modern biotechnology. With contributions from fields as far ranging as synthetic and physical chemistry, immunology, molecular biology, engineering, material and computer science, the industry has delivered powerful tools to diagnose rapidly, and economically, a variety of maladies and to monitor therapies to combat those conditions. The use of immunoassay, and most recently, nucleic acid hybridization assay technologies has been crucial to the
specificity
of these tools, while luminescent detection has provided the required
sensitivity
and
economy
. This chapter details the state of the art of medical diagnostics technology at Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, IL), with particular emphasis on the development of a new class of luminescent labels: the
N
-sulfonylacridinium-9carboxamides and their use on the Abbott Laboratories Prism
and Architect
platforms.
