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Klinisk Biokemi i Norden
The XXXIIIth Nordic Congress in Clinical Chemistry
in Reykjavik, Iceland June 12th-15th, 2012
Jón Jóhannes Jónsson, Chairman of the Scientific Committee
One of the highlights of our Nor-
dic cooperation is the Nordic
Congress in Clinical Chemistry.
The Icelandic Society for Clini-
cal Biochemistry and Laboratory
Medicine is honored to host this
congress in 2012. The congress will
take place on June 12th-15th, the
sunniest month of the year when Iceland has daylight
around the clock. This will be the fourth time the
congress is held in Iceland, the first one being in 1982.
Preparation for the congress is always an exciting task
for our small society. All hands on deck and everyone
is involved in multiple tasks! There are many adminis-
trative issues to address and we plan a strong scientific
program to reflect how fascinating our field is.
The members of the organizing committee are
Ingunn Þorsteinsdóttir, chairman, Ísleifur Ólafsson,
president of the congress, Guðmundur Sigþórsson,
Jón Jóhannes Jónsson, Leifur Franzson and Ólöf Sig-
urðardóttir. The members of the scientific committee
are Jón Jóhannes Jónsson, chairman, Elvar Theodórs-
son, Ingunn Þorsteinsdóttir, Ísleifur Ólafsson, Leifur
Franzson, Nader Rifai, and Vilmundur Guðnason.
These individuals are all actively working in clinical
laboratories and members of the The Icelandic Society
for Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine.
The first task of the committee was to determine the
overall aim of the scientific program and the topics to
be covered. The program should be both interesting
and useful for clinical laboratorians as well as clinicians
and basic scientists interested in recent developments
in our discipline. It will contain a mixture of practical
aspects facing us today and more forward looking sub-
jects portraying what our discipline will be occupied
with in the future.
Our discipline is in a critical transition stage. New
technologies are creating massive information on
human biochemistry at ever increasing rate. Translation
into practice and implementation in clinical medicine
will be in the clinical laboratory. We have to be prepared
for this revolution and take a leadership role at our
institutions in introducing this technology locally. One
goal of the meeting is to help us prepare for this task.
We will continue the high standard for the scientific
program set by previous congresses. In preparing the
program, the committee wrote to the presidents of all
the other Nordic Societies asking for suggestions on
topics for symposia as well as the potential speakers.
They sent us numerous interesting suggestions from
various national experts. The current program reflects
them in numerous ways. In addition, the scientific
committee has sought advice from various experts in
the Nordic countries and around the world. The sci-
entific committee would like to thank all these people
for contributing their time and expertise to help us
develop the outstanding program we aim for.
Information on the congress will be posted on the
website
as it becomes available. It
will include plenary lectures, symposia and workshops
where research at the interface of clinical biochemis-
try, clinical medicine and basic biomedical science
will be presented. A central underlying theme will be
how recent scientific advances impact the practice of
medicine through the services of the clinical labora-
tory. International leaders in various key areas will
present their work and thoughts.
At present the scientific committee has planned lec-
tures, symposia and workshops covering the follow-
ing topics:
•
Factor VII and the new antithrombotics
•
Cardiovascular markers
•
Systems biology of human metabolism
•
Aging and its effect on the brain, cardiovascular
system and bone
