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Letter from
Ron Harbeck,
AMLI President Dear AMLI
Members,
I want to
thank all of you for the opportunity to serve as your
President for the next two years. I also want to thank
Barbara Detrick, our Past President, for her amazing
contributions to the Association. She is to be applauded
for her dedication to our specialty. The scientific
programs that she organized over the past two years have
been extraordinary. It is a pleasure, and challenge, to
follow in her footsteps.
The Officers and Council of our organization are
committed to serving our membership and advancing the goals
of the organization. We will work hard to provide the best
possible forum that addresses the issues in medical
laboratory immunology.
This past year we signed an affiliation agreement with
the Journal of Immunological Methods, which will now be the
official journal of the AMLI. This is a great opportunity
for us to promote the mission of the Association. Below are
the aims and scope of the journal as defined by the
publisher:
The Journal of Immunological Methods is devoted
to covering techniques for: (1) Quantitating and detecting
antibodies and/or antigens and haptens based on
antigen-antibody interactions. (2) Fractionating and
purifying immunoglobulins, lymphokines and other molecules
of the immune system. (3) Isolating antigens and other
substances important in immunological processes. (4)
Labelling antigens and antibodies with radioactive and other
markers. (5) Localizing antigens and/or antibodies in
tissues and cells, in vivo or in vitro. (6) Detecting,
enumerating and fractionating immunocompetent cells. (7)
Assaying for cellular immunity. (8) Detecting cell-surface
antigens by cell-cell interactions. (9) Initiating immunity
and unresponsiveness. (10) Transplanting tissues. (11)
Studying items closely related to immunity such as
complement, reticuloendothelial system and others.
In addition the Journal will publish articles on novel
methods for analysing the organization, structure and
expression of genes for immunologically important molecules
such as immunoglobulins, T cell receptors and accessory
molecules involved in antigen recognition, processing and
presentation. Submitted full length manuscripts should
describe new methods of broad applicability to immunology
and not simply the application of an established method to a
particular substance - although papers describing such
applications may be considered for publication as a short
Technical Note.
The Journal also welcomes articles relating to
modification by recombinant techniques of molecules of
immunological interest; isolation of novel binding proteins
by phage display; gene therapy; transfection; and
expression.
As part of the agreement each
member of the AMLI will receive an electronic subscription
to the journal, published twice monthly, at no cost.
In addition the journal will place on its cover the notice:
Official Journal of the Association of Medical Laboratory
Immunologists. The journal will make available to the
Association space for the Association to publicize the
Association’s events and information.
Members of the AMLI will be presenting
an AMLI Guest Society Symposium again this year at the
American Association of Immunologists meeting in San Diego.
The program includes the following speakers and topics:
Association of Medical Laboratory Immunologists (AMLI):
Prognostic and Diagnostic Markers of Inflammatory Diseases
Sunday, April 6: 2:45 PM, San Diego Convention Center, Room
31A
Chairs: Ronald
J. Harbeck,
National Jewish Medical and Research Center; Kenneth D. Beaman, Rosalind Franklin University
of Medicine and Science
Speakers:
Anne I.
Sperling,
University of Chicago, Up-shifting and down-shifting the
Th2-mediated
inflammatory response
Kenneth
D. Beaman,
Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science,
Intracellular cytokine expression as a diagnostic tool for
inflammatory diseases
Evangelos Ntrivalas,
Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine
and Science, IL-6 gene
polymorphisms as a predicator of the
immune response
Ronald J. Harbeck,
National Jewish Medical and Research
Center, Biomarkers in
inflammatory lung diseases
I want to also thank Barbara Detrick
for contributing an article about the goals and objectives
of the AMLI to the Federation of Clinical Immunology
Societies (FOCIS) that was recently published on their
website.
I want to
personally thank Jim Schmitz, Irene Check, Tom Alexander,
Gerry Miller and Barbara Detrick for helping in establishing
this year’s program to be held in Seattle. Among the topics
we plan to cover are:
·
Transplantation and interventional immunology
·
Medical laboratory immunology in developing
countries
·
CLIA update on issues affecting the clinical
immunology laboratory
·
Management and quality issues facing the
laboratory
·
Advanced diagnostic procedures and
instrumentation in clinical immunology
·
Clinical immunology laboratory and infections
diseases
·
Case reports
As a
member of the Association there are several ways in which
you can contribute and strengthen the organization and your
own professional development. For those who attended last
year’s meeting, you have aided us in the planning of our
Annual Meeting in Seattle this year (August 9-12, 2008) by
giving your ideas for topics, future venue and a critique of
the program. Members and non-members are encouraged to
continue to submit topics for presentation at the Annual
Meetings. We are in the process of setting the topics and
potential speakers but would welcome your input.
Among the
other ways that you can contribute and strengthen our
organization are:
·
Invite a colleague to become a member.
·
Distribute our Annual Meeting announcements
and membership brochures at conferences that you may be
attending.
·
Suggest potential sponsors or corporate
members.
·
Volunteer to be on one of the committees,
e.g., Website Committee, Education Committee, Standards
Committee, Exhibitor’s Committee and the Public Relations
Committee.
·
Inform us of conferences and other information
that would be important to put on our website.
Additional information will be added to the website
throughout the year. As the Annual Meeting approaches we
will be providing additional information in order to make
your trip to Seattle an enjoyable experience.
Best
regards,
Ronald J.
Harbeck, Ph.D., D-ABMLI |
