A Bio-Rad Quality Control Virtual Conference

Dr. Baumann is Co-Director of the Central Clinical Laboratory and Director of Central Processing at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Dr. Baumann received her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She then completed a Clinical Chemistry Fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and obtained board certification in clinical chemistry (ABCC). Her specific area of interest includes improving quality in the automated clinical laboratory. Dr. Baumann was the faculty chair for the AACC Certificate Program on Patient Safety Essentials for Laboratory Professionals.  She served on the CLSI Document Development Committee on Statistical Quality Control (C24) and was a faculty contributor to the AACC Certificate program on Quality Control in the Clinical Laboratory. Dr. Baumann is committed to education and teaching.  She currently is the program director of the Mayo Clinic Clinical Chemistry Fellowship Program.

Dr. Cervinski is the Director of Clinical Chemistry and Point-of-Care at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, in Hanover, New Hampshire. During Dr. Cervinski’s time at DHMC, the laboratory volume in chemistry has more than quadrupled as the hospital has affiliated with numerous critical access hospitals and outpatient clinics. He developed a clinical chemistry fellowship program that attained ComACC accreditation in 2015, and has trained four fellows to date, with two more in training. He is actively involved in the education of pathology residents and has served on the departmental Clinical Competency Committee for the past four years, and recently completed his first year as the Chair of the committee. Additionally, Dr. Cervinski developed DHMC’s moving averages program that detects shifts in assay performance long before the next scheduled quality control event.

Dr. Grenache is the chief scientific officer for TriCore Reference Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In that role, he leads the TriCore Research Institute and works cooperatively to develop and implement TriCore’s scientific research strategy. He is also the medical director of the chemistry, immunology, and esoteric analytic chemistry labs, a clinical professor of pathology at the University of New Mexico, and president of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Clinical Chemistry and a Fellow in the AACC Academy. His research interests are centered on leveraging longitudinal laboratory data to gain insights into population health and the diagnostic tests used to manage the pregnant patient.

Dr. Straseski is an Associate Professor of Pathology at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She is the section chief of clinical chemistry and medical director of endocrinology and automated core laboratories at ARUP Laboratories, a national reference laboratory in Salt Lake City, Utah.  She is board certified in clinical chemistry by the American Board of Clinical Chemistry and is a fellow of the AACC Academy. Dr. Straseski received her Ph.D. in pathology and laboratory medicine from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical chemistry at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Maryland.  She is an active member of and holds leadership positions within the American Association for Clinical Chemistry and the American Society for Clinical Pathology.

Ms. Berte has always been interested in laboratory quality management, having served as a blood bank manager and the laboratory’s quality coordinator. She teaches medical laboratories around the world how to implement a Quality Management System (QMS), use it to improve patient safety, and use it to reduce the cost of poor quality. She also trains laboratorians how to write better documents and how to design more effective training and competence assessment programs. Ms. Berte has a Bachelor of Science degree in Medical Technology and a Master of Arts Degree in Health Care Administration. In addition to being an American Society for Clinical Pathology certified medical technologist, specialist in blood banking and diplomate in laboratory management, she is also certified as a quality manager and quality auditor by the American Society for Quality. Ms. Berte has volunteered for the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) for over 25 years in roles such as chairholder of the QMS Subcommittee, chairholder of many CLSI QMS guidance documents, and member of several past and current document development committees. She was the co-leader for ISO TC-212 Work Group 1 for the ISO 15189:2012 international medical laboratory standard and serves on the standard’s drafting team for the upcoming ISO 15189 revision. She has been the author of numerous articles, chapters, and books and continues to provide audioconferences, workshops, and learning courses on various aspects of laboratory quality.

Elitza S. Theel, Ph.D., D(ABMM), is the Director of the Infectious Diseases Serology Laboratory at Mayo Clinic and an Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine And Pathology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Theel completed her Postdoctoral Fellowship in Clinical and Public Health Microbiology at the Mayo School of Graduate Medical Education after she graduated with her PhD in Medical Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her interests include development and evaluation of serologic methods, including antibody and antigen detection assays, for diagnosis of difficult to culture or otherwise identify infectious diseases. Dr. Theel has evaluated over 15 different serologic tests for detection of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 over the past few months and has co-development a neutralizing antibody test for the virus, which is currently being used to screen potential plasma donors as part of the national COVID-19 convalescent plasma clinical trials. 

Mr. Nico Vandepoele serves as Scientific and Professional Affairs manager for the Bio-Rad Laboratories Quality Control Division. He works to promote an understanding of laboratory regulations and best practices as they pertain to QC and EQA/PT programs. Nico is a well-recognized speaker and presents trainings, workshops and lectures at symposia around the world and volunteers on several CLSI committees.

Nico studied in Bruges Belgium in the Higher Technical Institute and graduated in 1995 as a Bachelor in Clinical Chemistry with a dual degree in Information Technologies and Chemistry. He worked in a clinical lab for and then for a Biotech company as head of the research lab before starting at Bio-Rad as Field Application Specialist. In 2010, Nico became product manager for the Quality Systems Division in Irvine, California where he managed the Unity and EQAS informatics programs.

Mr. Abobaker Yagoot has a background in Biochemistry. He obtained his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from Ain Shams University, Cairo in Egypt. He received the Medical Laboratory Technology Certificate from St. Clair College-Windsor from Ontario, Canada in 1992. He also obtained the certification for Medical Technologist (M.T – A.S.C.P) from American Society of Clinical Pathologist, New York State, USA. Prior to his current position at the National Guard Health Affairs, he had a key role in the Quality Assurance/Quality Improvement Office at the Chemistry Department of King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre. Mr. Abobaker Yagoot is actively involved in conferences nationally and internationally. In addition to those roles, Mr Abobaker Yagoot is a Certified C.A.P. inspector.

Mr. Yundt-Pacheco performs research in quality control and patient risk issues in the Informatics Discovery Group at Bio-Rad. John has had the opportunity to work with laboratories around the world, developing practical real time, inter-laboratory quality control and proficiency testing systems. As an innovator, has developed numerous ideas leading to 37 laboratory related invention patents around the globe.

John holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from University of Texas at Dallas with a focus on Intelligent Systems and has a Post Master’s Certificate in Sequence Analysis and Genomics, and is a degree candidate for a Master’s degree in Biotechnology at Johns Hopkins University. In addition to authoring articles and papers on QC design, he is a popular speaker on laboratory QC and QA topics at international conferences.