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CLINICAL LABORATORIAN

JULY 26, 2006SPECIAL EDITION

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BRUNS ANNOUNCESRETIREMENT AS CLINICAL CHEMISTRY EDITOR

On Sunday, David E. Bruns, MD, publicly announced his in-tention to retire at the end of 2007 as Editor of Clinical

Chemistry. Bruns, who assumed the position in 1990, is only the third person to serve as editor during the journal’s 52-year history. Harold Appleton and J. Stanton King were the previous editors.

During his tenure, Bruns spear-headed many improvements in the monthly peer-reviewed journal published by AACC. Among the most noteworthy accomplishments made by Bruns and his editorial team has been the steady climb in Clinical Chemistry’s impact factor. In 1990 when Bruns became editor, the journal’s impact factor stood at 1.923, and last year the reported value was 7.717. Impact factors, a measure of the importance of scien-tific journals calculated each year by the Institute for Scientific Informa-tion, influence the way published scientific research is perceived and evaluated.

Also during his term, Bruns led the movement to publish the jour-nal electronically. Hosted by Stan-ford University’s HighWire Press at www.clinchem.org, the journal’s online version boasts a complete archive of the journal from 1955, as well as quick publication of submis-sions and online submission of manuscripts.

Bruns, who is also Professor of Pathology, Director of Clinical Chemistry, and Associate Director of Molecular Diagnostics at the University of Virginia in Charlot-tesville, began his involvement with AACC in 1974, shortly after earning his medical degree from St. Louis University (Mo.). He has served various other professional societies in laboratory medicine, including terms as president of the Academy for Clinical Laboratory Physicians and Scientists and the Association of Clinical Scientists, while also maintaining an active research labo-ratory. He is the author or co-author of more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, and he has co-edited several books in laboratory medicine. A frequent invited speaker at national and international meetings, Bruns counts his time as the editor of Clinical Chemistry as one of his most important contributions to the field. “I believe that what is in the journal helps to define our disci-pline for ourselves and for others,” Bruns explained.

AACC has formed a commit-tee to find a new editor for Clini-cal Chemistry. The group, chaired by Carl Burtis, PhD, will conduct a search for qualified candidates who can continue the high quality publishing standards put in place by Bruns. The goal is to have the next editor identified by mid 2007.

Van Slyke Foundation Chooses First Past-Presidents’ ScholarGift from Diagnostic Industry Leader Funds Clin Chem Post Doc Training BY JULIE MCDOWELL

This spring, the first AACC Past-Presidents’ Scholarship was awarded to Ross J. Molinaro, PhD, who began pursuing postdoctoral training in clinical chemis-try this month at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga. The Past-Presidents’ Schol-arship was launched by the Van Slyke Foundation and funds the salary of a postdoctoral candidate for up to two years at an institution accredited by the

Commission on Accreditation in Clinical Chemistry (COMACC). Funding for this new scholarship program is made possible through a $500,000 gift from Gopal Savjani, who will be honored at a dinner hosted by the Van Slyke Foundation tonight here in Chicago.

In 1981, Savjani founded Diagnostic Systems Laboratories, Inc. (Houston, Texas), which was recently acquired by Beckman Coulter (Fullerton, Calif.). Savjani will remain with DSL as Vice President of Global Business Development. His gift to the Van Slyke Foundation was moti-vated by his commitment to education. “I believe in education,” he said. “Education is really the way to support individuals, rather than just giving money. By using this money for education purposes, people will benefit in the future.”

Lab Tests Online Expands GloballyNew Localized Versions Being Planned Around the WorldBY GEORGE LINZER

Lab Tests Online is expanding its horizons. Over the last year, the award-winning patient education Web site has been spreading eastward through Europe as professional societies in four nations—Spain, Italy, Germany, and Po-land—have agreed to translate and adapt the site to their

respective countries. Hungary became the fifth country, signing on in early June. Looking to the South Pacific, the Australasian Associa-tion of Clinical Biochemists reports good progress in its efforts to raise funding towards making Lab Tests Online-AU a reality.

These developments are giving rise to a global network of Lab Tests Online sites that share content and build on a brand that is widely respected for the quality of its consumer information. In some cases, the international sites are also sharing technology, in-creasing the efficiency at which they operate. More importantly, the sites, and the organizations developing them, also have in common the goals of improving patient understanding of laboratory testing and increasing the visibility of the medical laboratory.

As producer of the site, AACC has overseen the negotiations of several agreements that have led to this burgeoning network. AACC President John Sherwin, Ph.D., FACB, points out that this is consistent with AACC’s mission. “One of our core objectives is to promote laboratory science worldwide,” he said. “I can’t think of a better way to do that than by globalizing Lab Tests Online.”

IN THIS ISSUE

3 Plenary Speakers:Clarke, Wallace

6 AACC 2006 Slate of Candidates

14 NACB New AcademyFellows

15 AACC Recognizes25 & 50 Year Members

16 AACC Divisions Awards

18 2006 New Product Review

50 International and SYCL Travel Grant Winners

See Scholarship, continued on page 50

See Lab Tests Online, continued on page 8

T H E W E D N E S D A Y C O N V E N T I O N D A I L Y

Ross J. Molinaro, PhD

8 CLINICAL LABORATORY NEWS SPECIAL EDITION

The First Steps Towards a Global Network

Efforts to globalize Lab Tests Online began soon after the original site launched in 2001, when the Association of Clinical Biochem-ists (ACB) approached AACC about licens-ing the site in the United Kingdom. A then-new initiative by the U.K.’s National Health Service advocated increased patient involve-ment in the health care system, and a U.K. medical charity, the Health Foundation, had launched a grant program to support elec-tronic resources for patient education. Af-ter successfully submitting a proposal for

a three-year grant, ACB was able to begin development of Lab Tests Online-UK (www.labtestsonline.org.uk) in January 2003. The site launched in June 2004 and now attracts more than 140,000 visitors per month.

ACB’s Project Leader, Mike Hallworth, says the investment is paying off. “We recog-nized that we were getting good content, but what we didn’t realize was how successful the American site would be.” He pointed to the U.S. site’s traffic, which has topped one mil-lion visitors a month, and the respect the site has earned among health writers, laboratory and other medical professionals, and its us-ers. “We’re seeing a similar response here.” In fact, the U.K. site has been so successful that it has already received a commitment from the National Health Service for the next three years of funding.

Elsewhere in Europe, interest among laboratory professionals in Lab Tests Online has taken root and has been aided by the active support of the European Diagnostic Manufacturers Association (EDMA), which stepped in with a plan to make localization easier and more efficient. EDMA and its af-filiated national trade associations proposed to centralize the technology and general ad-ministration and management of Lab Tests Online sites initially in Germany, Spain, and Italy, freeing the professional societies in those countries to focus on translating and localizing the editorial content. Using the agreement with ACB as a model, AACC and EDMA came to terms last summer, and work began later in the year on the content. In Germany, the content is being translated by DGKL, the German Society of Clinical Chemistry; in Spain, by SEQC, the Spanish Society for Clinical Biochemistry and Mo-lecular Pathology; and in Italy, by SIBioC, the Italian Society for Clinical Biochemistry. The EDMA affiliates in each country are VDGH/Germany, FENIN/Spain, and ASSOBIO-MEDICA/Italy. EDMA expects that the sites will launch by early fall.

More than a half-dozen other countries expressed interest in localizing Lab Tests Online during last summer’s AACC/IFCC meeting in Orlando. Under its agreement with AACC, EDMA, through its Polish af-filiate, IPDDL, has been able to follow up

with PTDL, the Polish Society of Labora-tory Diagnostics, reaching an agreement in March for the development of Lab Tests Online-PL. The site is expected to launch sometime early in 2007. Similarly, EDMA reached agreement, through its Hungarian affiliate, HIVDA, on June 1 with MLDT, the Hungarian Society for Laboratory Medicine. Lab Tests Online-HU plans to launch in the latter half of 2007.

In Australia, AACB has followed the U.K. model, applying for a government grant to fund the launch of Lab Tests Online-AU. A decision on the proposal is expected by the end of the year. In anticipation of a favorable

outcome, AACB has begun to establish the infrastructure to get a jump on development, appointing a lead editor to begin localizing the content and licensing the content man-agement system employed by AACC and ACB for a more efficient transfer of content and faster site development.

AACC President Sherwin, like his coun-terparts Down Under, is also optimistic. “With a little luck,” Sherwin predicted, “we’ll have five Lab Tests Online sites available in a few months and as many as eight sites online by the end of next year.” Within months af-ter the eighth site launches, Sherwin expects the number of visitors to the sites to soar. “We expect the combined traffic from all Lab Tests Online sites to approach three mil-lion, maybe 3.5 million, visitors a month,” he said.

Principles for International Collaboration

The agreement between AACC and ACB that spawned Lab Tests Online-U.K. also established the basic principles that guide the relationship among all the Lab Tests On-line sites and provide a firm foundation on which to build the Lab Tests Online network. Unlike a one-time license to translate a book, a license to clone a Web site, translate and/or adapt it to local culture, policies, and prac-tice, as well as maintain it over time, requires a far more complex set of parameters.

D. Robert Dufour, MD, an original mem-ber of the Lab Tests Online Editorial Review Board, says some unique problems can arise. “First, of course, we are concerned about the faithfulness of the translation,” Dufour ex-plained. “This is why we have insisted that translations be overseen by the professional societies in each country. But it’s also impor-tant that each site have the flexibility to ad-dress the priorities of the respective country. Because this is all so new—I don’t think any-one has attempted to coordinate and main-tain something like this on this scale—it was important that we establish some general principles that would allow us to address is-sues as they arise.”

Key principles developed to ensure integ-rity of the site’s content include adherence to AACC’s editorial guidelines, coordinated editorial planning and content sharing, and appointment of editorial liaisons for resolv-

ing technical differences. Provisions are also made for collaborative marketing.

First among the guidelines for organi-zations that are interested in developing a country-specific Web site is the commitment of the licensing organization to keep the site commercial free. Other guidelines focus on criteria for establishing which sites to link to, requirements governing review of existing content, and limitations on the use of brand names and medical jargon.

Each site in the Lab Tests Online network must also be committed to share its editorial plans with the other network sites in order to prevent duplication of effort. New and up-dated content developed by one site in the network is shared with all other sites in the

network. Together, this approach maximizes use of the network’s available editorial re-sources.

Translation and review of the test pages are enormously time-consuming tasks that leave little opportunity for development of new content. Consequently, in the initial years, the U.S. site will continue to drive much of the editorial development, provid-ing the other sites with new and updated material once it is posted. ACB, which is several years ahead of the others, has been able to begin addressing important priori-ties in the U.K., including development of pages on osmolality and TPMT, both of which are now also posted on the U.S. site. Further, under the guidelines established by AACC, each site appoints a member of its editorial board to serve as editorial liaison to the other sites. The liaison’s role is to over-see resolution of editorial differences that may arise with the existing content, or any new content that is added to one of the sites. This board of international editors meets formally by conference call twice a year to review status, share lessons learned, and ad-dress operational concerns. The liaisons also address specific editorial issues as they come up throughout the year.

The utility of the network of editorial board members was readily apparent dur-ing the first meeting of representatives from DGKL, SEQC, and SIBioC, which was held at the end of March and produced one sur-prising result. Dufour, who is editorial liai-son for the U.S. site, raised concerns about DGKL’s plans to include reference ranges on Lab Tests Online-DE. The Editorial Re-view Board of the U.S. site had long held the position that no reference ranges should be included due to the many factors affecting reference values.

Mariam Klouche, liaison for the German site, explained that DGKL wanted to include reference ranges for those tests where some harmonization of values existed. Dufour and Hallworth, the U.K. liaison, readily un-derstood the higher degree of harmoniza-tion that existed in Germany, and recognized that for some tests in their own countries, a level of harmony also existed. As a result of their conversation, both agreed to review the current policy with an eye toward including

reference ranges where they could be sup-ported nationally.

The guidelines also call for collabora-tive marketing efforts. This guideline largely refers to supporting the “Lab Tests Online” brand and providing links to each of the Lab Tests Online sites. Already, the U.S. and U.K. sites include links to one another. When the other European sites launch later this year, a new set of links will be added to the site’s title bar. Co-marketing also means sharing data, ideas, tools, and experience in an effort to increase traffic and recognition of each national site. As much as makes sense, each Lab Tests Online site needs to be committed to promoting the network of sites, as well as its own site.

Localizing in a Global Medium

Although Lab Tests Online regularly logs visits from about 150 countries each month, its worldwide reach does not equate to wide-spread accessibility. The Internet, despite its reputation as a global resource, often suffers from the same barriers that limit interac-tions in the off-line world, namely language and cultural differences. Localization works to overcome these barriers.

But Lab Tests Online is not the first Web site to tailor itself to a specific country. Many sites already do so, including Google, which allows visitors using Google-India, for ex-ample, to conduct searches in one of six different Indian languages. But the localiza-tion of Lab Tests Online goes beyond respect for each country’s primary language. More importantly, it confronts the cultural differ-ences reflected in laboratory policy and prac-tice and in editorial perspectives, according to Richard Flaherty, Executive Director at AACC.

“Even in the lab, we like to think that the science is pretty cut-and-dried,” Flaherty noted. “So Lab Tests Online forces us to face some issues that, sometimes, we are able to ignore because of national policies or com-mon practice.”

A case in point is the recent collabora-tion on Down Syndrome screening. In the U.S., Inhibin A has been added to the Triple screen, which is typically performed between the 15th and 20th week of pregnancy. In-hibin A is not, however, part of the routine screen in the U.K.

Dufour acknowledges that globalizing Lab Tests Online is spawning many new op-portunities. “It’s exciting to see our work ad-opted in other countries, and to learn how the science is sometimes applied differently elsewhere in the world,” he said, speaking for the editorial board of the U.S. site. “It’s even more exciting to think that our work will now reach many more people.” CLN

George Linzer is the executive producer of Lab Tests Online for AACC. He can be reached at glinzer@aacc.org.

Lab Tests Online Goes InternationalLab Tests Online, from page 1

The new Lab Tests Online title bar will debut in the fall with the launch of the new European sites.

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