AACC Announces Plenary Session Line Up For 2011 Annual Meeting
Washington, DC, January 20, 2011 The American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) is holding its 2011 Annual Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA on July 24 – 28. The highlight of each day is the Plenary Session which provides an opportunity to hear from world leaders in the fields of science, medicine and technology. The five sessions scheduled for 2011 are:
Sunday, July 24, 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Mary-Claire King, PhD
2011 Wallace H. Coulter Lectureship Award Winner
Inherited Breast and Ovarian Cancer: Fulfilling a Promise of Personalized Genomic Medicine
The opening Plenary Session will be addressed by Mary-Claire King, PhD, Professor of Genome Sciences and of Medicine at Washington University in Seattle, WA. Her discovery and mapping of the BRCA1 gene has been critical to understanding the role of genetics in the development of breast and ovarian cancer and has opened up new diagnostic strategies for women in families with a high risk of developing breast cancer. In addition, Dr. King demonstrated that human and chimpanzee genomes have 99 percent commonality and indentified the gene responsible for deafness. She has employed genetic techniques to help international humanitarian organizations, such as Amnesty International and Physicians for Human Rights, in identification for UN war crimes tribunals.
Monday, July 25, 8:45 am – 10:15 am
Jeffrey P. Koplan, MD, MPH
The Obesity Epidemic: Where Are We?
Dr. Koplan is VP for Global Health at Emory University in Atlanta, GA and Director of the Emory Global Health Institute. He served 26 years at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) and was Director from 1998 to 2002. He began his public health career in the early 1970s as one of CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service Officers. He worked in the United States and around the globe on many major public health issues including smallpox, SARS, pandemic influenza and HIV/AIDS, environmental issues such as the Bhopal chemical disaster, and the health toll of tobacco and chronic diseases. He was the founding director of the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Among his many awards, Dr. Koplan received The Distinguished Service Award, the highest award from the Public Health Service, and was honored with the creation of The Jeffrey P. Koplan Lecture on Global Leadership in Public Health, established in 2002 by the CDC. Most recently, Dr. Koplan chaired the Institute of Medicine committee on preventing childhood obesity and is internationally active in promoting healthy nutrition and physical activity.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011, 8:45am – 10:15am
Doris A Taylor, PhD
Stem Cells, Decellularization and the Future of Building Organs
Dr. Taylor is the Medtronic-Bakken Chair in Cardiac Repair and Director of the Center for Cardiac Repair at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN. The number of patients in the transplant waiting list always exceeds the supply of available hearts. Dr. Taylor’s pioneering research challenged the notion that cardiac myocytes cannot be regenerated. Building on the discovery that circulating myoblasts could repair skeletal muscle, she has used embryonic stem cells derived from non-human primates and humans as an in vitro model for understanding human development. Using a decelluarized rat heart as a scaffold, Dr. Taylor has demonstrated that stem cells could reconstitute that inert structure, resulting in a beating heart. This work has led to clinical trials of intravenous administration of mesenchymal stem cells from donated bone marrow to treat patients with cardiac damage. Her work has achieved wide international recognition and offers the possibility of intravenous therapy both to treat and prevent heart failure.
Wednesday, July 27, 8:45am – 10:15am
Josef Coresh, MD, PhD, MHS
Creatinine Calibration: An Inconvenient Truth
Dr. Coresh is a Professor of Epidemiology, Medicine and Biostatistics at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, where he directs the cardiovascular epidemiology program and the George W. Comstock Center for Public Health Research and Prevention. He has worked at the interface of epidemiology and clinical chemistry studying risk factors and markers for kidney and cardiovascular disease. He has co-authored over 200 publications and plays a leadership role in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, the CKD-EPI collaboration, and the CKD Prognosis Consortium. He contributed to genetic studies providing novel insights into the etiology of CKD and hyperuricemia. In 2010 he was awarded the National Kidney Foundation’s Garabed Eknoyan Award for contributions to kidney disease and the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention Mentoring Award. His efforts to calibrate assays, evaluate novel markers and guide reporting of estimated kidney function have been implemented widely in the US and internationally.
Thursday, July 28, 12:30pm – 2:00pm
Richard M. Weinshilboum, MD
Pharmacogenetics to Pharmacogenomics
Dr. Weinshilboum is Professor of Molecular Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics and Internal Medicine, and Mary Lou & John H. Dasburg Professor in Cancer Genomics Research at the Mayo Medical School and Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. His research has focused on pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics and he has authored over 320 scientific manuscripts addressing these topics. These studies have shown that inherited differences in the methyl and sulfate conjugation of drugs are responsible for large individual differences in drug metabolism and response, as well as adverse drug reactions. His lifelong contributions have earned him numerous awards and honors. His molecular genetic experiments resulted in the development of molecular tests that make it possible to protect patients with leukemia and transplantation recipients from life-threatening, genetically-mediated adverse drug reactions.
AACC invites interested journalists to register for AACC’s Annual Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo. Registration opens in April 2011. Journalists with AACC press credentials will have access to the exhibits, plenary sessions, symposia and poster sessions. Except for ‘Meet the Expert’ sessions which are closed to the press, journalists may attend all other events subject to space availability. For a complimentary registration, complete and submit a Press Registration Form. For more information about the Annual Meeting, Clinical Lab Expo, or AACC, contact Peter Patterson on either of the above phone numbers or at ppatterson@aacc.org.
AACC is a leading professional society dedicated to improving healthcare through laboratory medicine. Its over 9,000 members are clinical laboratory professionals, physicians, research scientists, and others involved in developing tests and directing laboratory operations. AACC brings this community together with programs that advance knowledge, expertise, and innovation.
