Dear AMLI Members:

As I start my tenure serving AMLI as president, I want to first acknowledge the tremendous contributions of our past president, John Schmitz.  John has worked tirelessly for AMLI and done an excellent job at planning for the annual meetings, while also keeping the council and committees focused on issues affecting AMLI members.   As we head toward the end of 2011, I would like to update you on the past year and let you know what is in store for the upcoming year.

In June 2011, the AMLI sponsored a joint session with the American Society for Histocompatibility & Immunogenetics (ASHI) at the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS) meeting held in Washington, D.C.  The title of the session was “Recent Progress in Elucidating the Role of Host Genetics and Immune Responses in Transplantation and Infectious Disease: Implications for the Clinical Immunology/HLA Laboratory”.  Barbara Detrick and Geoff Land co-chaired the session that included four talks presented by outstanding scientists who are making significant progress in this area.  The session was attended by more than 150 people.  After this very positive session, the council is planning to sponsor a joint session in 2012 at FOCIS.  As soon as a topic is decided, I will be asking all AMLI members for suggested speakers. 

Our 24th Annual Meeting was held from Aug. 13 – 16, 2011, at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego.  The venue and program were both excellent.   Plenary session topics included: Autoinflammation, Vaccine development, and Primary Immunodeficiencies.  In addition, there were our traditional sessions on Case Studies and Hot Topics.  The review of attendee evaluations suggests that the program was well received.  I hope that everyone attending gained from the meeting and I encourage all AMLI members to provide potential topics for 2012.  Kevin Maher, Maggie Fogel and Wendy Neuberger have worked hard posting speaker slides and audio on the AMLI website!  Presentations from past meetings will be available publicly, but the current annual meeting sessions will be available only to AMLI members.

Millie Fleetwood and Maggie Fogel put long hours into our 2011ACCME accreditation application.   They joined John Schmitz, Barbara Detrick and me on a conference call with the ACCME committee.  The ACCME only wanted a small amount of additional information to complete the application.  We are hoping to receive a longer 6 year accreditation and are deeply indebted to Millie and Maggie for their work.

Our 2012 Annual Meeting is scheduled for August 3 – 6 in Minneapolis, MN.  We are actively planning for the meeting and will keep you posted on the program.  We anticipate an excellent scientific program that will bring together a mix of clinical talks addressing timely topics in Medical Laboratory Immunology supplemented with research on hot topics in Immunology.   Feel free to submit suggested topics

(Antony.Bakke@ge.com) and please join me in Minneapolis.  AMLI is a friendly group and it is always a pleasure to reconnect with friends every year. 

A special “thank you” goes out to our exhibitors and representatives from industry – whose participation is absolutely necessary for the success of our annual meeting.  They provide us with the latest information on commercial products, financially support the AMLI and are part of AMLI.  Also “welcome” to our new exhibitors this year.  We are glad you are taking part and hope you will exhibit again in 2012.

Finally, I would like to thank the AMLI Council, Committee Chairs/members and Annual Meeting Planning Committee for all of their efforts over the past years.  I look forward to working with everyone over the upcoming year to further the goals of the AMLI.

Tony Bakke, Ph.D, D(ABMLI)

President

Clarient – a GE Health Care Company

31 Columbia

Aliso Viejo, CA 92656

Phone: 949-425-5886

E-mail: Antony.Bakke@ge.com

ABHI)

President