One of Dr. Barland's current professional interests is a continuing effort to apply diagnostic laboratory tests to the autoimmune and chronic inflammatory conditions. As director of the immunodiagnostic laboratory he has overseen the development and application of new technology such as FACS to the automated detection of a number of autoantibodies. He hopes to incorporate newer tests in the near future for testing for procalcitonin- an acute phase reactant that appears useful in differentiating sepsis from flares of connective tissue disease