October 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of American Laboratory. I’d like to take this opportunity to reminisce about important factors that have contributed to the outstanding success of scientific instruments during the last half-century.
The post-Sputnik expansion of science in the U.S.A. powered the development of many technology-based business segments. Laboratory instrumentation is the one I’m most familiar with, since I’ve lived it.
In college, in the early ’60s, my junior year curriculum in Chemistry included a semester on Instrumental Analysis. This was a forward-looking experience where we built modules such as optical spectrometers, cathode followers that were essential to glass electrode pH meters, and sensitive strip-chart recorders that showed disruptive improvement over conventional qualitative and quantitative analysis.
Conventional technology (5 BC and earlier, where BC is Before Chromatographs, ~1960) for qualitative analysis of ions relied on a detailed scheme of mixing special cocktails designed to confirm the presence of a suspected analyte by generating colored solutions or precipitates. For qualitative assay of organics, one had to react the unknown with a range of different reagents, and look for evidence of a reaction, which often was functional group-specific. Identification relied on the melting point of the purified solid. Tables of compounds indexed by meting points were searched until a match was found. If one was really concerned, one could run a mixed melting point, where the target was mixed with an equal amount of authentic standard material. If both samples had the same melting point, the 50/50 mixture was a match to the pure authentic that confirmed the ID. This was tedious at best. I seriously wondered if I’d chosen the right major.
Near the end of the semester on Organic Qualitative Analysis, we were introduced to infrared spectroscopy with a Perkin-Elmer 137. Talk about a night and day contrast! I could see that the instrumentation, particularly automated recording of the spectra, was easier and more intellectually satisfying. Plus, it was useful. This and similar instruments propelled rapid growth in the ’70s and ’80s.
Today, the scientific instrument business, which covers primarily chemistry and life science labs, is a $50 billion/year business segment. There were several notable events along the way, especially in the early years, starting in the 1960’s. America was in in love with science in response to Sputnik. Science lectures were everywhere. Beckman Instruments already provided instruments, including a pH meter with a glass electrode, a single-beam UV/VIS spectrometer, centrifuges, and infrared spectrometers slightly smaller in size than a grand piano. Perkin-Elmer was also developing analytical instruments such as gas chromatographs and smaller infrared spectrometers. However, the user base was small.
Entrepreneurial professors such as Keene Dimick (University of California, Davis) started Wilkins Instrument and Research (Walnut Creek, CA) in 1963, which was bought by Varian Instruments three year later. Professors used their expertise in a particular technology niche to form firms such as J&W Scientific (Walter Jennings, University of California, Davis), Wyatt Technology (Philip Wyatt, University of California, Santa Barbara), and Bioanalytical Systems (Peter Kissinger, Purdue University).
However, let me call attention to three books from the 1960s that had exceptional impact on chemical analysis by expanding the user base. The first is Basic Gas Chromatography (McNair, H.M. and Bonelli, E.J.; Varian Aerograph, 1965). This book democratized GC, enabling technicians and nonanalytical chemists to obtain useful results without becoming chromatographers. It was the leading example of the practical do-it-yourself genre. The book also supported short courses on GC, which Varian offered around the world. Basic GC was translated into French, Russian, and Spanish.
The second book is Electronics for Scientists: Principles and Experiments for Those Who Use Instruments (Malmstadt, H.V.; Enke, C.G. et al.; W.A. Benjamin, 1962). With this text as a road map, the automation revolution quickly advanced. The book empowered bench chemists to design and construct simple circuits that facilitated improved laboratory workflows. Instrument developers and vendors responded by quickly incorporating these gadgets and features into commercial instruments.
Spectrometric Identification of Organic Compounds (Silverstein, R.M.; Webster, F.X. et al.; Wiley, 1963) was the essential guide to the instrumentation revolution in the mid-1960’s. The authors’ approach of using multiple spectroscopic techniques (NMR, IR, and MS) to home in on the probable structure of an analyte served us all well. It had an impact until MS/MS with collisionally induced fragmentation became common in the 1990s. This approach was infinitely more interesting and useful than melting points; derivatives; and percent carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen (CHN) determinations, which was the best available technology in the 1950s.
These books quickly improved the state-of-the-art in critical areas of laboratory instrumentation. Scientists appreciated the wide applicability. The founders of American Laboratory saw an opportunity to further increase the user base by focusing on scientist-to-scientist communication of advances in metrology. Scientists were and still are interested in practical advances that they can use in their labs.
Our society benefits immensely from the broad applicability of science-based metrology combined with a large army of trained analysts. We should thank the leaders in the 1960s for their efforts to develop improved technology supported and utilized by a large knowledgeable user base. Without their interest and skill in teaching, metrology might be relegated to the ivory towers, and we’d be much worse off.
Robert L. Stevenson, Ph.D., is Editor Emeritus, American Laboratory/Labcompare; email: [email protected]