This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Correction: ARUP Laboratories is wholly owned and governed by the University of Utah, whose president appoints its board. A story in Sunday's Tribune did not specify the degree of the school's control.
A redrock fountain and desert landscaping welcome visitors inside multistory banks of tinted windows that reflect the mountains, sky and clouds that envelop ARUP Laboratories.
But this seeming 300,000-square-foot oasis in the middle of the University of Utah's Research Park, and the rapidly growing industry it is part of, are on the front line of an increasingly difficult battle to safeguard Americans from infectious diseases, old and new.
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, when letters and packages containing both real and suspected anthrax plagued businesses and post offices, ARUP helped test samples of the suspect powders. And as one of the nation's leading "archival laboratories," its experience will be priceless in battling any biological terror attacks or naturally occurring pandemics.
It is a distinction that makes Ronald Weiss proud. Affiliated with Associated Regional and University Pathologists Inc. (ARUP) since shortly after its founding in 1984, he has seen the company grow from a 90-employee School of Medicine spinoff into an 1,800-strong, major player in the medical testing sector.
"There is always something new to challenge our industry," says Weiss, a clinical pathology professor who became ARUP's president and chief operating officer three years ago. "And in responding to newly emerging diseases, we endeavor to stay on the leading edge."
ARUP staff and associated U. scientists are focused on faster, more accurate diagnoses and treatment of cancers and infectious diseases, and in the past year have expanded their expertise to screening the state's newborns for potentially deadly ailments.
But it is in dealing with the unexpected where ARUP's researchers strive to stay especially alert. "The one unpredictable area of health care now, one commanding international attention, is the Avian Flu," Weiss says.
That particularly potent subset of influenza has killed more than 100 million domesticated birds, mostly chickens, in recent years. The World Health Organization has recorded more than 100 cases of the virus crossing over to humans, triggering fears a future outbreak as deadly as the 1918-1919 Spanish Flu, which killed up to 100 million people worldwide.
"What impact such a pandemic would have when and if it strikes [could depend] on the early response in identifying and confirming cases," Weiss says. "Our laboratories and others will play a critical role in that."
He says ARUP will be ready, having the infrastructure of scientific expertise - along with the academic backing of its parent university - to go with the readiness of a growing operation already humming.
Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, the ARUP staff processes 26,000 daily specimens of blood, body fluids and tissue biopsies. Staffers offer more than 2,000 different tests.
Although most are routine - screenings to determine diabetes, drug use, HIV/AIDS and other infections - others are state-of-the-medical-art microbial and genetic tests to unveil potentially deadly newborn diseases, new strains of drug-resistant disease and potential pandemics, old and new.
The privately held ARUP is not the largest medical testing company in the country - New Jersey's Quest Diagnostics, with $5.5 billion in sales last year, and North Carolina's $3.3 billion Laboratory Corporation of America are the industry's giants - but its $240 million in fiscal 2005 sales place it firmly in the mid-tier revenue level, on par with the Mayo Clinic and others.
"Our revenues are growing about 10-12 percent a year," Weiss says. "We're anticipating more than $264 million for fiscal 2006."
Similar growth trends are evident industrywide, says Bruce Friedman, a University of Michigan pathology professor and longtime medical testing business observer.
"This industry is going nowhere but up," he says. "There is incredible new science being brought to bear on diagnoses."
Advances in molecular-level testing of cellular proteins and genes, coupled with improved CT and MRI scanning technology, is revolutionizing medicine, Friedman says. Doctors will soon have the means to identify tumors and disease at very early stages, when they can be quickly treated with high cure rates.
"We're going to have a tsunami of information flowing out of our labs. The challenge will be how to place it all in context," Friedman says.
Indeed, that already is a problem. People today are living decades longer than their grandparents did, and with growing numbers of senior citizens comes demand for medical testing related to the ills of old age - heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's disease and others.
"Certainly, just the sheer numbers of [retirement age] baby boomers is one component," says Carren Bersch, editor of the Medical Laboratory Observer. "Other components include testing for new and different infectious diseases."
While giving Avian Flu its due as a threat, Bersch believes drug-resistant diseases could pose an even bigger potential for worldwide health crises - and will be a prime mover behind new medical testing research.
"All of us can spy dead birds - they are rather obvious. But we can't see little germs," she says.
Making sure those mutating germs can be detected will assure the future of testing labs such as ARUP, agrees Brian Moss, president of the Utah Life Science Association.
Aging Baby Boomers, HIV/AIDS, multiplying and more accurate post-natal screenings and the challenge of staying ahead of potential, drug-resistant plagues are not only "challenges to public health, but opportunities for our industry," he says.
"Every time we face such hazards now, it has been technology that has provided the answers," Moss says. "We're just seeing the tip of the evolutionary iceberg in this industry."
Multifaceted business
* Offers more than 2,000 tests to more than 3,000 hospitals in 50 states, including the University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics, and is recognized for its excellence.
* Handles, on average, more than 26,000 bodily fluid and tissue samples daily, operating around the clock.
* Maintains the ARUP Blood Bank and Transfusion Center, providing 25 percent of all blood transfused in Utah.