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42
| 4 | 2007
Klinisk Biokemi i Norden
I am writing my column on an
October day on our family’s
farm. The sun is shining from
a clear blue sky, and the trees
are in their full autumn colors.
The forest is yellow and red and
green, really beautiful! I was
working in the forest with my
husband, a perfect day for out-
doors’ activities.
In the quietness of the forest I was thinking of
the past summer and the near future. 17
th
IFCC-
FESCC European Congress of Clinical Chemistry
and Laboratory Medicine EuroMedLab was held
in Amsterdam on June 3-7, 2007. This congress
was this year’s most important IFCC event. The
Congress was a success in many ways. There were
over 3200 delegates attending the lectures and
visiting the exhibition. 1116 posters were also
presented. The scientific program was exciting and
interesting. One of the very highlights of the con-
gress was Her Majesty Queen Beatrices’s presence in
the Opening Ceremonies. She also spent long time
visiting the exhibition.
The year 2008 is an important year for the
IFCC. There will be two major events during that
year. The IFCC General Conference will be held
in Antalya, Turkey on April 13-15, 2008. Another
major event is the 20
th
International Congress of
Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, IFCC
WorldLab which will be held in Fortaleza, Brasil
on Sept. 28-Oct.2, 2008. IFCC Council Meeting will
be held during the Congress and the Council elects
the new Executive Board for 2009-2011. The dead-
line for the nominations of the Executive Board is
October 31, 2007.
Several IFCC Awards will be given to the Awardees
during the Fortaleza Congress. The nominations for
these IFCC Awards are active at the moment. The
deadline for nominations is Jan. 15, 2008. The bid-
IFCC News
Päivi Laitinen
ding for the 22
nd
International Congress of Clinical
Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine 2014 is also
active at the moment. In addition there are also
several positions in all Divisions active for nomina-
tions. These are busy times in the IFCC.
I have just returned home from the 11
th
Asian-
Pacific Congress of Clinical Biochemistry which was
held in Beijing on Oct. 14-18, 2007; IFCC Executive
Board had its meeting before the Congress. Beijing
was a unique experience, at the moment a mixture
of the East and the West. The city has developed
enormously during the past years; it is not at all
the same place as five years ago, I was told. Modern
buildings were built all over the huge city. The
Chinese are in a hurry getting ready for the next
year’s Olympic Games.
The congress site was in the Beijing International
Congress Center, which was located near one of the
new stadiums that is being built. The Asian-Pacific
Congress is about the same size as the EuroMedLab.
There were about 1000 participants from the region
and a few participants even from the Scandinavian
countries.
The Congress had also a big exhibition with all
the newest instruments and tracks. There were also
many small reagent companies from China, but
unfortunately all the brochures were in Chinese.
There are about 80 000 laboratories in China alone
so the market is huge.
IFCC organized several symposia in the congress.
The topics dealt, for instance, with the IFCC stan-
dardization efforts and traceability in laboratory
medicine, which are very important areas of the
IFCC activities. Other areas were molecular diag-
nosis, the challenges in laboratory medicine, and
laboratory management.
I was able to visit one Beijing laboratory. It was
National Center for Clinical Laboratories which
organizes external quality control assessment sche-
mes. There were 35 persons working in the labora-
