Short Course Description

Intermediate Excel and VBA in the Laboratory

This course builds upon Getting Started with Excel and VBA in the Laboratory by exploring more advanced features of Excel. Topics covered include importing data from relational databases, timed data collection, custom form creation, and communication with external programs.

Who Should Attend

This short course is for bench scientists, laboratory managers, and students interested in automating experimental data collection and analysis using Microsoft Excel and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). The course material is targeted at intermediate Excel users having some prior experience with VBA. Attendees are expected to be familiar with all material covered in the course Getting Started with Excel and VBA in the Laboratory.

How You'll Benefit From This Course

• You will learn how to import data from a variety of modern data sources.
• You will expand your knowledge of the VBA programming language and the Excel Object Model.
• You will learn how to build and make use of custom forms.
• You will explore advanced techniques for interacting with charts in Excel.
• You will learn about ActiveX and how to use it to interact with external programs.

Course Topics

• Importing data from text files, databases and web sites
• Automatic performance of tasks on a periodic basis
• ActiveX with Excel and VBA
• Programmatic manipulation of the Excel Object Model
• Programmatic data processing and analysis
• Charting and custom chart formatting with VBA

Course Fee: US $600/$700*

Course Format: Computer

Class Limit: 40

Instructors:

Mark F. Russo, Ph.D. Haddonfield, New Jersey USA

Mark Russo received his Ph.D. in 1989 and began his profession in the field of Laboratory Automation. He has integrated many diverse robotic systems for applications in high-throughput screening, combinatorial synthesis, product formulation and X-ray crystallography. He has also authored and configured several laboratory information management systems in areas such as protein expression and combinatorial synthesis. Currently, Mark works in the pharmaceutical industry where he leads a group that introduces automation and technology into laboratories throughout Drug Discovery.

Mark has served the Association for Laboratory Automation for many years as a member of the LabAutomation conference Scientific Committee, an instructor for two ALA short courses, and the Executive Editor of the Journal of the Association for Laboratory Automation (JALA). Mark has published extensively on topics related to laboratory automation. He has also co-authored a book on laboratory automation programming entitled Automating Science and Engineering Laboratories with Visual Basic, published by John Wiley and Sons (ISBN 0-471-25493-2).

William Neil Princeton, New Jersey

William Neil received a Bachelor's degree in Chemistry and Biology from Trenton State College in 1981. For several years he worked with the Toxicology Division of Mobil Oil Corporation where he developed his interest in computer programming and laboratory automation. In 1987 he wrote his first application to automate data collection from a liquid scintillation counter and installed his first robotics system to automate a Packard biological oxidizer. He then took a two-year sabbatical to focus entirely on laboratory automation at International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF), where he automated fragrance sample compounding. It was at IFF where he learned how to ensure a 24/7 operation. William has been employed in the pharmaceutical industry since 1992, where he has written several applications in Visual Basic and VBA to automate the Drug Discovery process, particularly in the area of instrument integration.

* higher fee applies to those who are not ALA members