@@ There are major structural risks for pathology and laboratory medicine.These disciplines may be viewed by university committees primarily as sewice units SO that university chairs may no longer be guaranteed.Required activitites to overcome these risks are scientific innovations in these fields，the development and rapid integration of new molecular and genetic analyses into laboratory diagnostics and the development of appropriate multidisciplinary networks to promote personalized medicine.Economic and social pressure is causing increasing competition between disciplines for diagnostic areas，funds for equipment and personnel，grants and research projects.These pressures are also causing rapid changes in health care systems and university structures.ExternaI change demands internaI change.Jared Schwartz recently stated in CAP Today：”The ciroumstances in our environment。the pace of innovation，the extraordinary flood of new technologies—these factors are driving our transformation”.Our disciplines should take a leading role in the introduction and validation of sophisticated technologies which are increasingly used in laboratory medicine and wilI also gain importance for molecular pathology in the future.These include mass spectrometry platforms for proteomics research.for steroid profiling and therapeutic drug monitoring.Genome technologies such as gene chip platforms or next generation sequencing are further examples.Developments in the field of diagnostic molecular pathology have great potential.Integration of genomics and proteomics is necessary to elucidate protein functions as they relate to pathogenesis.