Medical Director, Clinical Laboratories

Fred S. Apple, Ph.D., is Medical Director of Clinical Laboratories at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN, and Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine.

Dr. Apple’s research interests have been centered in the areas of cardiac biomarkers in acute coronary syndrome and heart failure, and forensic toxicology. His CLIA-certified research laboratory is the “Cardiac Biomarkers Trials Lab” at the Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation of Hennepin County Medical Center.

Dr. Apple has served as an Associate Editor of Clinical Chemistry for the past 14 years. He served as a member of the ‘National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry’ Laboratory Practice committee, the ‘Joint ESC-ACCF-AHA-WHF Global Task Force’ and the ‘Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction’ biomarker subcommittee establishing clinical and laboratory practice guidelines for the use of biomarkers for acute coronary syndromes and heart failure. He is a member of the IFCC "Task Force on Clinical Application of Cardiac Biomarkers ". He also has served on the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Qualification of Biomarkers as Surrogate Endpoints of Chronic Disease Risk and on the NHLBI Working Group for Onsite Tools and Technologies for Clinical Cardiovascular Research and Point-of-Care.

Professor of Medicine in Cardiology and Professor of
Laboratory Medicine and Pathology
Chair, Division of Core Clinical Laboratory Services Mayo Clinic

Allan S. Jaffe, M.D., has spent his long academic career investigating the use of biomarkers to characterize the pathobiology of acute cardiovascular disease. For that reason, he is the chair of the Division of Clinical Core Laboratory Services in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic.

He is a member of most of the major cardiology and clinical chemistry editorial boards and sits on most of the major guidelines committees for the use of these biomarkers.

Dr. Jaffe's initial efforts focused on coagulation and fibrinolysis and resulted in an appreciation for the pro-coagulant effects of plasminogen activators. At that time, he was also actively involved in defining how to best measure and use CKMB to determine the diagnosis and prognosis (infarct size) of patients with acute myocardial infarction.

Subsequently, with investigators at Washington University, he helped to develop and was responsible for the validation studies of the first cardiac troponin I assay. His efforts have since focused on the measurement of cardiac troponin and how to use the value obtained from clinical studies.

In addition, he has expanded his interests into the area of heart failure and has published extensively on the use of both cardiac troponin and natriuretic peptides to characterize patients with both acute and chronic heart failure. An additional interest relates to the intersection of depression and heart disease where he was the co-chair of the Enhancing Recovery in Coronary Heart Disease (ENRICHD) study of post-acute myocardial infarction patients.

Source: http://www.mayo.edu/research/faculty/jaffe-allan-s-m-d/bio-00027772

Senior Consultant at Hospital de Sant Pau

Jordi Ordonez-Llanos, M.D. Ph.D., is currently Senior Consultant at the Clinical Biochemistry Dept. of Sant Pau Hospital and Professor of Clinical Biochemistry at the Autonomous University, both in Barcelona, Spain.

Dr. Ordonez-Llanos’ main interest in research has been focused in two areas of cardiovascular medicine: the role of LDL modifications in atherosclerosis development and the utility of biomarkers of cardiovascular diseases in the clinical practice. He has authored or coauthored 180 publications in SCI-ranked journals, most of them related to the mentioned research areas.

He serves or has served at various national and international scientific committees and societies. Dr. Ordonez-Llanos is currently the Chair of the IFCC Task Force for Clinical Applications of Cardiac Biomarkers.

Professor in Biotechnology and Diagnostics

Dr. Pettersson is a professor in Molecular Biotechnology and Diagnostics at University of Turku. During 1981–1992 he worked in the diagnostic industry to establish a novel diagnostic system for commercial use. After his Ph.D. he returned to academic research.

Dr. Pettersson’s special research interests are decentralised and affordable test concepts for critical care testing in coronary and infectious diseases and for prostate cancer screening. He has published more than 230 scientific papers and holds 17 patents.

Dr. Pettersson is a Board Member of the recently established Central Advisory Board of the National Biodesign Alliance (NBA) coordinated by the Translational Health Science & Technology Institute (THSTI, Gurgaon, India). As of March 2013, University of Turku and THSTI established an Indo-Finnish Diagnostic Research Centre (IFDRC) in two locations headed by prof. GB Nair of THSTI and prof. Pettersson. IFDRC seeks to promote Indo-Finnish and Indo-European diagnostic research, higher education and training, researcher mobility and increased networking and interaction with commercial actors in both countries.

Co-owner and R&D Director of HyTest Ltd.
Professor at the Department of Biochemistry
at the Lomonosov Moscow State University

Starting from the beginning of 1990s, Dr. Katrukha has been involved in the research activities related to cardiac markers. For many years he has worked with analytes such as troponin I, fatty acid binding protein, IGFBP-4 fragments as well as BNP, NT-proBNP and their precursor. His research interests are focused on studies of the biochemical features of cardiac markers and design of new monoclonal antibodies that could be used for the precise immunodetection of cardiac markers in patient’s blood.

Dr. Katrukha is a member of two IFCC SD Working Groups: “Standardization of
Troponin I (WG-TNI)” and “Standardization of Pregnancy-Associated Plasma Protein A (WG-PAPPA)”.