ABSTRACT
Radioimmunoassay (RIA) has evolved from a highly demanding research procedure into a versatile and widely accepted diagnostic tool. Assays routinely involved sample pretreatment, lot dependent adjustments to the tracer, short useful life of tracer, incubations of several days duration, counting times of several minutes, three or more replicates per sample, and extensive manual data manipulation. It is logical that Technicon would involve itself in the development of an automated RIA system since it is the leader in the field of laboratory automation. The unique feature of the Star® RIA system is its means of separation of bound from unbound antigen at the reaction's end. In Star® separation is effected by the use of a solid phase antibody wherein the antibodies are coupled to magnetically susceptible particles. The Star® operating system software may be conceptually divided into four basic types: main, overlays, data files, and results files.
