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| 4 | 2011
Klinisk Biokemi i Norden
The Scientific Program of the XXXIIIth Nordic
Congress in Clinical Chemistry in Reykjavík, 2012
Jón Jóhannes Jónsson
Chairman of the Scientific Committee
In the last issue of Klinisk Biokemi í
Norden (KBN) I described the prep-
aration for the scientific program
of the Nordic Congress in Clinical
Chemistry in Reykjavík in 2012. In
this issue and the next I will describe
the program in more detail.
We believe clinical biochemists
look mainly for three things when they attend con-
ferences. They want to return home better informed
to deal with their daily work. They also want to know
what the future is likely to be; keeping in mind that
the preparation for the future starts today. Last but not
least, they like to take delight in better understanding
and appreciating the rich intellectual wonders of clinical
biochemistry. And they are many and always growing!
To address these expectations our planned program
comprises plenary lectures, symposia and workshops.
The plenary lectures will be of general interest for clini-
cal biochemists. They will summarize the current state
of knowledge and describe exciting new science in
important fields shaping our discipline in the coming
years. Symposia are designed to be more interactive
and cover selected topics in more detail. Workshops
will address critical practical issues facing the clinical
laboratory. In addition, posters will describe diverse
topics of interest to investigators attending the congress.
In this issue I will first describe the plenary lectures and
then the workshops. The symposia will be described in
the next issue of KBN.
Thomas Renne, professor of clinical chemistry at the
Karolinska Institute, will give a lecture on the plasma
contact systems. He will also describe new strategies to
block thrombosis and inflammation. His group recently
described the interesting role of inorganic polyphos-
phate polymer (polyP) as mediators of platelet-driven
inflammatory and procoagulant activity. Dr. Felicitas
Müller in his lab won the Astrup prize in 2010 for
research in this area.
Vilmundur Guðnason, director of the Icelandic
Heart Association (IHA), will give a lecture on aging
research. He is the principal investigator of the Age,
Gene/Environment Susceptibility (AGES) Study to
examine gene and environment interactions in old
age. This is a large collaborative study between the
National Institute on Aging, NIH and the Icelandic
Heart Association.
Larry Bowers, the chief science officer of the United
States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), will talk about
the importance of testing in the deterrence of perfor-
mance-enhancing drug abuse. Few are as experienced
in and knowledgeable about this complex field. With
the London Olympic Games coming up in 2012 this
topic will be of special interest to us.
Piero Rinaldo, professor and director of biochemi-
cal genetics at the Mayo Clinic, will talk about inborn
errors of metabolism (IEMs). This field is of growing
importance with more IEM being discovered and
treatments described. Dr. Rinaldo´s special interests
include clinical applications of tandem
mass spec-
trometry. He leads a worldwide collaborative project
to improve testing in newborn screening of metabolic
disorders, a project with implications for the coming
age of metabolomics.
Nader Rifai, professor of pathology at Harvard
Medical School and director of clinical chemistry at
Children´s Hospital Boston, will talk about the devel-
opment of new biomarkers, which is a theme of central
importance in clinical biochemistry. As editor-in-chief
of Clinical Chemistry, Dr. Rifai is in a key position to
discuss the important problem of why so few mark-
ers are making it to the clinic despite heavy funding
in marker discovery.
Dennis Lo, Professor of Chemical Pathology of The
Chinese University of Hong Kong, will give a lecture
on next generation sequencing of plasma DNA as a
diagnostic tool. Dr. Lo is a global leader in research on
diagnostic applications of molecular biology especially
