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National Instruments LabVIEW: A Programming Environment for Laboratory Automation and Measurement . National Instruments LabVIEW is a graphical programming language that has its roots in automation control and data acquisition. Its graphical representation, similar to a process flow diagram, was created to provide an intuitive programming environment for scientists and engineers. The language has matured over the last 20 years to become a general purpose programming environment. LabVIEW has several key features which make it a good choice in an automation environment. These include simple network communication, turnkey implementation of common communication protocols RS232, GPIB, etc. , powerful toolsets for process control and data fitting, fast and easy user interface construction, and an efficient code execution environment. We discuss the merits of the language and provide an example application suite written in-house which is used in integrating and controlling automation platforms. Keywords: NI LabVIEW； graphical programming；system integration； instrument control；component based architecture； robotics； automation； static scheduling； dynamic scheduling； database. Introduction Cytokinetics is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery of small molecule therapeutics that target the cytoskeleton. Since inception we have developed a robust technology infrastructure to support our drug discovery efforts. The infrastructure provides capacity to screen millions of compounds per year in tests ranging from multiprotein biochemical assays that mimic biological function to automated image-based cellular assays with phenotypic readouts. The requirements for processing these numbers and diversity of assays have mandated deployment of multiple integrated automation systems. For example, we have several platforms for biochemical screening, systems for live cell processing, automated microscopy systems, and an automated compound storage and retrieval system. Each in