IFCC Robert Schaffer Award For Outstanding Achievements In The Development Of Standards For Use In Laboratory Medicine
Sponsors: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
and Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI)
Presented to: Prof. Lothar Siekmann, PhD
The International Federation of Clinical
Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) is pleased and honoured to
announce that Professor Lothar Siekmann, PhD has been selected to
receive the first Robert Schaffer Award for Outstanding
Achievements in the Development of Standards for Use in Laboratory
Medicine. This is a new IFCC award named after Robert Schaffer, an
organic chemist at the National Institute of Standards and
Technology who dedicated his career to the development of reference
methods and materials for use in the clinical laboratory.
The Robert Schaffer Award honours an individual who has made
unique contributions to the advancement of reference methods and/or
reference materials for laboratory medicine, thereby (1) improving
the quality of clinical diagnostics and therapies, (2) reducing
costs of patient care, and (3) promoting internationally recognized
and accepted equivalence of measurements and traceability to
appropriate measurement standards. Professor Siekmann has dedicated
his career to the development and application of reference
methodology for use in Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine.
His contributions to mass spectrometric methodology and in
particular the development of isotope dilution mass spectrometry
were seminal developments.
Dr. Siekmann is Professor of Clinical Chemistry of the Medical
Faculty of the University of Bonn, Germany and Director of the
Reference Laboratory I of the German Society of Clinical Chemistry
(DGKL). He received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of
Bonn and has devoted his entire academic career in improving the
analytical techniques used in the clinical laboratory and has been
involved in the standardization of many of them. Accomplishments of
note include (1) development of isotope dilution mass spectrometry
(IDMS; 2) development of IDMS reference measurement procedures for
hormones (aldosterone, testosterone, progesterone, cortisol,
estradio1-17, estriol, 17- hydroxy-progesterone, thyroxine,
trijodo-thyronine) in human serum; (3) development of IDMS
reference measurement procedures for metabolites and substrates
(cholesterol, total glycerol, creatinine, uric acid, urea in human
serum and urine; (4) development of IFCC reference measurement
procedures for the measurement of the catalytic concentrations of
enzymes at 37°C; (5) use of reference methods in proficiency
testing ; (6) certification of reference materials; and (7)
implementation of the concept of traceability. Much of his
scientific work has been transferred to clinical chemistry practice
and many reference methods he developed are still in use. He has
authored or coauthored over 100 peer-reviewed publications and has
been awarded the Gabor Szasz Award of the German Society of
Clinical Chemistry.
Professor Siekmann also has actively participated in the work of
national and international scientific societies in the field of
reference systems. For example, he has been chair of the IFCC's
Scientific Division Committees on Reference Systems for Enzymes
(C-RSE) and on Traceability in Laboratory Medicine (C-TLM) and he
still is member of the IFCC's Scientific Division Executive
Committee. Currently, he is the chair of the Working Group II of
the Joint Committee on Traceability in Laboratory Medicine.