The promise of capillary electrophoresis (CE) for supplanting conventional methods in the clinical laboratory led to intense interest in this analytical tool a decade ago. Since then, a number of clinical applications have been defined along with those that have impacted the pharmaceutical, environmental, and forensic arenas. Concurrent with the development of CE applications was the emergence of electrophoresis in the microchip format. The main attraction of this platform, the ability to

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... e high-resolution separations in a few hundred seconds, was not its only attribute. The capability for parallel processing of separations was complemented by the potential for integrating sample preparation into the same device. This Review highlights recent progress towards CE and microchip electrophoresis as clinical diagnostic tools, with literature coverage from 1996 to 2000. Figure 1. Sera containing abnormalities in the βregion not detected by AGE. Normal, λfree light chain seen as an extra βpeak by CZE. Abnormal 1, IgA λmonoclonal protein seen as a broad β2 peak on CZE. Abnormal 2, very small IgM λmonoclonal protein seen as an extra βpeak.