UKMedLab21

Chris Laing

No bio provided

Mark Lawler

Manu Vatish

No bio provided

Jenny Nobes

Jenny Nobes is a specialty registrar in Chemical Pathology in NHS Tayside. Her involvement in the intelligent Liver Function Testing (iLFT) project began when she came to Dundee in 2018. She has been particularly involved in the addition ofthe Enhanced Liver Fibrosis score to iLFT, submitting this work for her MSc thesis in 2019. As part of the iLFT team she has been pleased to receive a UNIVANTS of Health Care Excellence award and a Royal College of Pathologists Excellence Award for Innovation in Pathology Practice.

Session: Intelligent algorithms for the automated assessment of deranged LFTs

Session Date: Tuesday 15thJune 2021

The intelligent Liver Function Testing (iLFT) pathway is a multi-award winning tool which improves the early diagnosis of liver disease in Primary Care. If initial liver function tests are abnormal, iLFT automatically cascades further biochemistry, haematology, immunology and virology investigations as appropriate. The results of these are combined with clinical details supplied by the requestor to generate a diagnosis and management plan –all from a single venepuncture. More than 6500 patients have gone through the iLFT pathway in the first 2 years. In this talk we will explore what conclusions can be drawn from this data set by conventional methods, and how we could apply ‘big data’ approaches in the future.

Jim R Bonham

Jim Bonham is currently the National Laboratory Lead for the New-born Screening Blood Spot Programme in the UK on behalf of Public Health England.   He is also President of the International Society for Neonatal Screening with more than 500 members in 40 countries.

In 2012 he led a study to introduce additional inherited metabolic disorders into the national new-born screening programme in the UK.  Four of these were incorporated as part of the programme in England and Wales from 2015.

He has interests in the organisation, quality and effectiveness of new-born screening and how this might be optimised and extended to benefit patients and families in the UK and Europe and more recently as part of the Global Taskforce on new-born screening, to low- and middle-income countries.

His efforts in these areas were generously recognised by the award of an MBE in 2020.

Julian Barth

No bio provided

Siobhan O'Sullivan

No bio provided

Michael Delaney

I have been in post as Consultant Nephrologist in East Kent, based at the Kent & Canterbury Hospital, since 2001. I have enjoyed a number ofexcellent collaborations with our Clinical Biochemistry team over the years producing original research, teaching and writing. I have co-authored the ACB book, Kidney Disease and Laboratory Medicine with Dr Ed Lamb, and regularly write clinical chapters for other recognised texts. My subspecialty interests are mineral and bone disease, glomerulonephritis, contrast nephropathy andtransplantation. Following graduation from St Marys Hospital London, my postgraduate training was completed in the West Midlands, and I was awarded MD from University of Warwick studying applied pharmacology of immunosuppressive drugs in kidney transplantation.

Session: Renal transplant biochemistry: the essentials and beyond

Session Date: Wednesday 16thJune 2021

During my time in Canterbury, I have had the pleasure of trainee clinical biochemists attend various clinics. During the sessions we go through the transplant cases and link this to the role of clinical biochemistry in the program. I would like today to bring a flavour of those encounters to the wider virtual audience. Looking forward, and 'post'-Covid, some developmentsin remote monitoring in the transplant clinic will also be discussed.

Tanya Curran

No bio provided

Hamish Courtney

No bio provided

Paul Dark

No bio provided

Paul O Collinson

MA MB BChir FRCPath MD FACB FRCP FESC

Professor of Cardiovascular Biomarkers at St George’s University of London and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist studied at St Catharine’s College Cambridge (Medicine and Biochemistry) and subsequently at St Thomas Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital. He was won several prizes and awards for his work on Cardiovascular Biomarkers (ran the first RCT of cardiac diagnostics) including the Hytest Award (Now IFCC award) for lifetime achievement in cardiovascular biomarkers.  Published over 280 papers and review articles, 281 abstracts and 15 book chapters. Likes SCUBA diving and photographing sharks. Especially the ones with big teeth.

Alex Miras

No bio provided

Gail Hayward

No bio provided

David Grenache

Dr. Grenache is the chief scientific officer for TriCore Reference Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In that role, he leads the TriCore Research Institute and works cooperatively to develop and implement TriCore’s scientific research strategy.

He is also the medical director of the chemistry, immunology, and esoteric analytic chemistry labs, a clinical professor of pathology at the University of New Mexico, andpresident of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.

Dr. Grenache earned his PhD in biomedical sciences from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, and completed postdoctoral training in clinical chemistry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Clinical Chemistry and a Fellow in the AACC Academy. His research interests are centered on leveraging longitudinal laboratory data to gain insights into population health and the diagnostic tests used to manage the pregnant patient.

Session: Scientific Session –AACC Lecture: Brave or Not, the Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing World is Here. What’s the Current Landscape?

Session Date: Wednesday 16th June 2021

The direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing marketplace is growing rapidly. Genetic tests can be purchased online for disease predisposition and carrier status, ancestry, wellness and a variety of other purposes. While some of these tests may have clinical utility and validity others have a more dubious purpose with suspect validity. The current landscape of DTC genetic testing including risks, benefits and regulations will be explored.

Learning Objectives

1. Describe the different uses of DTC genetic tests
2. Discuss the pros and cons of DTC genetic tests

Explain the current regulatory environment for DTC genetic tests

Maurice O'Kane

Maurice O’Kane has been a consultant chemical pathologist for over 20 years. I am a member of the IFCC Committee ‘Value Proposition in Laboratory Medicine’ which aims to identify and improve the value that Laboratory Medicine brings tohealthcare. Other current professional roles include Director of the N. Ireland Clinical Research Network and Joint Editor-in Chief, Annals of Clinical Biochemistry. I was previously Director of Clinical Practice at the Association for Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine. I am a visiting Professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences, Ulster University. Among my research interests are aspects of point-of-care testing and patient self-management in diabetes mellitus.

Session: Scientific Session –The Value Proposition for Laboratory Medicine

Session Date: Thursday 17th June 2021

IFCC Committee for the Value Proposition in Laboratory Medicine.
St John A, O’Kane M, Julicher P, Christenson R, Price CP.

The IFCC Committee for the Value Proposition in Laboratory Medicine is one of several initiatives that is attempting to both identify and improve the value that laboratory testing brings to healthcare. The work of the Committee is now focussing on the processes that take place when individual laboratories or healthcare providers agree to adopt a test and put it into routine practice, namely implementation. The latter which is about translating the benefits of a test as demonstrated in randomised controlled trials into a local and effective clinical pathway. The importance of this process is barely recognised and therefore is poorly performed leading to various consequences including significant and unwarranted variation in testing. The Committee has described an Implementation Framework aimed at improving the implementation process that includes recognition of all the stakeholders in a care pathway and accounting for all the benefits (and disbenefits)that may accrue to them when a new test changes the pathway. Application of the framework allows a business case to be prepared for the test and identification of the quality metrics to ensure it is effective.

Christa M Cobbaert

PhD, Clinical Chemist, EuSpLM, Professor of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine,Department of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), Leiden (NL)

Christa Cobbaert is Professor of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Leiden. She is    heading the Department of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine of the Leiden University Medical Centre. 

Her scientific research focuses on test evaluation with emphasize on standardization, harmonization and trueness verification of medical test results, for the sake of improving patient management and patient care. In the domains of clinical proteomics and precision diagnostics she works on the selection, development and standardization of better protein biomarkers using quantitative clinical chemistry proteomics, as promising alternative for immunoassay- based tests. She has several appointments on (inter)national positions because of her expertise on metrological traceability of test results. She is vice chair of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry (IFCC) Scientific Division EC and member of ISO TC 212/ working group 2. She chairs the European Federation of Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) working group on Test Evaluation, and at the national level she is heading the Dutch Calibration 2.000 initiative. She also leads the IFCC working group on standardization of serum apolipoproteins by mass spectrometry. She is an observer for the European Commission in the IVD working group of the Medical Device Coordination Group. Her scientific work is done in close collaboration with international colleagues and has resulted in ca. 180 original publications.

Juliana Dias Alves Pinto

No bio provided

Ana-Maria Simundic

Prof. Ana-Maria Simundic has received her graduate and postgraduate education at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Medical Biochemistry at the Zagreb University where she currently holds a professor position at the department of Medical Biochemistry. She is also teaching at the Tuzla University and Dubrovnik International University.

Prof. Simundic is currently employed at the Department of Medical Laboratory Diagnostics at the Clinical Hospital Sveti Duh in Zagreb, where she works as the Department Head. She was the President of the Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine 2012-2018. Until the end of 2017, she has served as the Editor-in-chief of the journal Biochemia Medica, published by Croatian society of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine. She now holds a Senior Editor position in that Journal.

Prof. Simundic has also reached wide international recognition with her engagement in the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) over the years, in her role of Executive Board Secretary (2011-2017), as the chair of the Working group for Preanalytical Phase (WG-PRE)  (2012-2018), Vice President of the EFLM (2018-2019), and currently as the President of EFLM (2020-2021). In her capacity of the chair of the WG-PRE, Prof. Simundic has been the chair of the Organizing Committee of the past four highly successful Conferences in Preanalytical phase, which took place in Parma (2011), Zagreb (2013), Porto (2015), Amsterdam (2017) and Zagreb (2019), as well as the chair of the Scientific Committees of the Conferences in Preanalytical phase in Zagreb (2013), Porto (2015), Amsterdam (2017) and Zagreb (2019).

She was awarded with the Best Young Scientist award (2000) and Best Research award (2011) by the Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine, with the Per Hyltoft Petersen Award (2012) by the Slovak Society of Laboratory Medicine and with the Honorary membership of the Hungarian society for Laboratory medicine (2012) and Italian society for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory medicine (2020). In 2015 she was among the Top 100 Powerlist of the British journal: The pathologist. Prof. Simundic has authored or co-authored numerous peer reviewed manuscripts. Her research activities focus on quality management and preanalytical phase.

Jonathan Kay

No bio provided

William Wade

He has been a central figure in the development and application of methods for the characterisation of the oral microbiome in health and disease. He has particular interests in the cultivation of previously uncultivated bacteria and the development and evaluation of antimicrobials and pre- and probiotics for the prevention and treatment of oral diseases. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and obtained grant funding from UK Research Councils, the US National Institutes of Health and major charities including the Wellcome Trust. He has also worked closely with Industry on translational projects to develop new oral care products.

Huub Van Rossum

Huub van Rossum is a specialist in laboratory medicine and clinical chemistry at the Netherlands Cancer Institute. He has a background in analytical chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences and followed his training for becoming a specialist in laboratory medicine in The Bronovo hospital in The Hague, Leiden University Medical Center (Netherlands) and Stanford Medical Center (USA). Next, he worked for about a year in the University Medical Center in Utrecht on the implementation of best practice QC.

In 2015 he started his company Huvaros (www.huvaros.com) that markets MA Generator, an application that supports the laboratory specific optimization and validation of patient-based real-time QC. Since 2014 Huub works as a laboratory specialist in the Netherlands Cancer Institute – Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital in Amsterdam. Here he is responsible, together with his colleague, for all routine clinical diagnostics including chemistry, immunochemistry, haematology and blood transfusion. His current research focuses on patient-based real-time quality control, the development and improvement of cancer biomarkers, diagnostic validation of longitudinal (tumour) biomarkers and implementation of these in routine clinical practice.

Session: Patient based real time quality control

Session Date: Thursday 17th June 2021

In the last couple of years new insights in the understanding and practical application of patient based real time quality control (PBRTQC) have been obtained. PBRTQCdiffers in several ways from statistical internal QC and combining both techniques allows improved analytical quality assurance and a more (cost-)efficient QC plan. Challenges for laboratories are how to obtain proper laboratory specific settings, how to intergrade these new techniques with standard QC and how to operate PBRTQCin routine practice. Recently,tools and documentation that addresses these issues has become available for medical laboratories, amongst others via an IFCC working group. This talk will briefly overview these recent developments, increase the understanding and potential application of PBRTQC techniques and to provide guidance when interested in implementing patient-based real-time QC on medical labs.

David Gonzalez de Castro

PhD FRCPath

David obtained his PhD in the field of molecular diagnostics of haematological malignancies in Salamanca, Spain.

He moved to Leeds to expand his research in multiple myeloma as a Research Fellow. In 2004, he obtained a position at The Royal Marsden Hospital and The Institute of Cancer Research in London as a Clinical Scientist to lead the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory. David has been involved in several translational research projects, particularly in the study of predictive and prognostics molecular biomarkers in haematological and solid tumours.

He has been one of the principal investigators on the CR-UK stratified medicine programme since 2011, working in close collaboration with the pharmaceutical and biotech industry to deliver personalised medicine for cancer patients using genomics analyses. In 2016 he was appointed Professor of Genomic Medicine at Queen’s University Belfast and leads the Genomics and Bioinformatics teams in the Precision Medicine Centre. He also works as a Consultant Clinical Scientist and Lead Scientist for Molecular Diagnostics at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. His research is centred around molecular biomarker analysis and developing genomic stratification tools for precision medicine and using circulating biomarkers to better classify and monitor disease.

Danielle B Freedman

MB BS, FRCPath., EuSpLM

Consultant Chemical Pathologist & Associate Physician in Clinical Endocrinology, Director of Pathology, and  is now Joint Medical Director of Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (Since April 2020).  She was previously the Medical Director of the Luton & Dunstable University Hospital from 2005 to 2010. 

She trained in medicine at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, University of London, and then went on for further training in Clinical Biochemistry and Endocrinology both at the Royal Free Hospital and the Middlesex Hospital, University of London.

Nationally, in the UK, she was elected Vice President of Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath) (2008 - 2011) and sat on RCPath Executive and Council (2005 – 11). 

She was a National member of the Association for Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine (ACB Council 2011 to 2015).  Currently she is a UK member of the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) Working Group on Post Analytic Phases 2018 to 2021.

She is the Chair of Lab Tests Online Board UK (2012 - ) A Peer reviewed, Non Commercial , Patient Centered website – resource for patients and public

Her main interests include clinical endocrinology, point of care testing and, importantly, the value of   laboratory testing with regard to patient safety and patient outcome.

She has over 100 publications in peer review journals including Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and Annals of Clinical Biochemistry in her areas of interest, as well as 10 book chapters.She is a frequently invited speaker both nationally and internationally on the above topics.  She won the ‘Outstanding Speaker’ award in 2009 from the American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC) and again in 2015.  Nominated as one of the TOP 100 International Power List of Influential Laboratory Medicine Professionals ( November 2015).

In July 2018, she was awarded the very prestigious award of Honorary Membership of the Association of Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine for her International work in Laboratory Medicine.

In her spare time, she likes classic cars, modern art and rock music from the 70’s and 80’s.

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Martin Myers

No bio provided

Bernie Croal

No bio provided

Rob Shorten

Chair of the ACB Microbiology Professional Committee

Rob is a Consultant Clinical Scientist in Microbiology at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. In addition to his role in providing clinical support, he is also the departmental lead for research, and is the audit lead for pathology. Rob has been an active member of the ACB MPC since soon after the Association for Clinical Microbiology (ACM) disbanded and joined the ACB. He has previously served on the ACB Scientific Committee.

Rob also has a keen interest in training and education. He is an honorary research associate at University College London and has been heavily involved in all aspects of the Scientist Training Programme (STP). With a research background in tuberculosis, and an interest in high consequence infectious diseases, Rob is a current member of the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP). He also has an interest in multi drug-resistant infections and antimicrobial stewardship.

Jo E Martin

MA PhD RCPathME FIBMS(Hon) FRCPI(Hon) FRCPath Professor of Pathology, Queen Mary University of London, Hon Consultant Barts Health NHS, Specialty Advisor for Pathology NHS England and Improvement

Professor Martin qualified Cambridge University and London Hospital Medical College, has a University of London PhD and master’s in leadership. She has over 130 published papers including Nature group and Science journals and is Professor of Pathology at Queen Mary University London. She has very broad experience in healthcare management including responsibility for research and for the training and education of over 17,500 staff. She served on the Board of Barts Health NHS Trust. She is an award winning eCPD app designer and co-founder of Biomoti, a drug delivery development company. Her clinical specialist expertise is in the pathology of gastrointestinal motility disorders. National Clinical Director of Pathology for NHS England April 2013-16, Jo was President of the Royal College of Pathologists from November 2017-2020 and is now National Specialty Advisor for Pathology for NHS England and Improvement.

Michael Osborne

No bio provided

William Morice

William G. Morice, II, M.D., Ph.D., is the Chair of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN and the President of Mayo Clinic Laboratories (aka Mayo Medical Laboratories MML). Dr. Morice is also a Consultant in the Division of Hematopathology and served as the Chair of this Division from 2009 to 2015. He holds the academic rank of Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology.

As an expert in diagnostic hematopathology, flow cytometry, and T and NK cell biology, among other topics, Dr. Morice is sought after as a national and international lecturer and visiting professor. Additionally, as an active educator and mentor, Dr. Morice teaches residents, fellows, and allied health staff the analytic approach to the diagnosis of benign and malignant hematolymphoid disorders.

Dr. Morice has written more than 160 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and abstracts. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from Indiana University and earned his M.D./Ph.D. (Immunology) degrees from the Mayo Clinic Graduate School. Dr. Morice completed a preliminary residency year in internal medicine a combined residency program in anatomic pathology and clinical pathology, and fellowships in surgical pathology and hematopathology; all at Mayo Graduate School of Medicine.

Outside of work he enjoys time with his family, competitive cycling, and seeking to live life to the fullest.

Dame Sue Hill

No bio provided