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Infectious Diseases
Subdivision Report
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By
Frederick S. Nolte, PhD, D(ABMM), F(AAM)
Chair, Infectious Diseases Subdivision
e-mail: nolte@musc.edu |
I am pleased to
report that after countless e-mails and teleconferences the
Infectious Diseases portion of the Program for the 2009
Annual Meeting is finally set. Our Plenary Session is
titled “Mass Spectrometry for Identification and
Characterization of Microorganisms” and will be comprised of
three presentations. Dave Ecker, of Ibis
Biosciences, will provide a brief overview of the principles
of mass spectrometry and the available instrument
platforms. Charlotte Gaydos, of
Johns
Hopkins
University,
will discuss the use of mass spectrometry for direct
detection and identification of respiratory viruses in
clinical specimens. Donna Wolk, of the University of
Arizona, will wind up the session with a talk on the
application of this technology for genetic profiling of
bacteria. Special thanks to Donna for her efforts in
making this exciting session a reality.
We will also hold two
Workshops at the Meeting. The first Workshop will be
focused on new strategies for the diagnosis and management
of Clostridium difficile-associated disease. Dale
Gerding, of Loyola University, Chicago Stritch School of
Medicine, has agreed to talk about disease spectrum,
outcomes, epidemiology, surveillance and prevention.
Karen Carroll, of Johns Hopkins University, will discuss
the available laboratory diagnostic methods and algorithms,
with particular emphasis on the role of molecular methods
for detection of toxigenic strains. We are fortunate to
have speakers of their stature and experience as part of
this Workshop.
The Infectious
Diseases Subdivision decided to devote the second Workshop
to platform presentations of selected abstracts. This gives
us an opportunity to provide special recognition to those
authors of abstracts of particular importance or interest to
the Subdivision, and provides a forum to more broadly
discuss the findings. A multidisciplinary Plenary Session
that I am sure will be of interest to the members of the
Infectious Diseases Subdivision is titled “Molecular Testing
in the Developing World”. Stay tuned for more details on
this session.
I am also pleased to
point out that the results of the CMV Working Group
were recently published in JMD (March, 2009). This
group was formed in the Fall of 2003 under the leadership of
Daynna Wolff, my colleague here at Medical University
of South Carolina, and with the help of Paul Neuwald
of AcroMetrix, a multi-center assessment of CMV viral
load assays was conducted in 2004. The study demonstrated
that laboratories across the country using a variety of
different assays and platforms performed similarly in terms
of relative quantitation but there was disparity in terms of
the absolute values assigned to samples. The current focus
of this group is to work with the National Institutes of
Standards and Technologies (NIST) to develop standard
reference material for nucleic acid amplification assays for
CMV. Congratulations to all involved with this
project! |