Skip to main content

AMLI Homepage News and Newsletter Archive

The links below will take you to the AMLI monthly newsletters distributed via e-mail to members.

 

February 2024
Newsletter

SAVE THE DATE!
37th AMLI Annual Meeting

Nashville, TN

Renaissance Nashville Hotel
611 Commerce Street, Nashville, Tennessee

August 16-19, 2024
888-627-8513

Special Rate: $294.00 (does not include applicable state and local taxes in effect at  the time of check-out).
This rate is good for three days before and three days after conference dates, subject to availability.

Full Meeting Information – Click Here

Deadline for this rate:  Monday, 7/24/2024

Call for Abstracts
Deadline May 31, 2024

AMLI encourages submission of abstracts in the following areas:

  1. Original basic or clinical research in the field of immunology
  2. Novel immunological assays for diagnostic purposes
  3. Case studies on immunologic diseases or disorders
  4. Diagnostic impact on clinical immunology testing
  5. Quality or process improvements in the immunology laboratory
  6. Method comparisons – classic and novel immunologic assays

For MORE about Abstract Guidelines for Submission and Abstract Awards, go to:

https://amli.org/2024-annual-meeting/meetings-2024-call_for_abstracts/
Only registered AMLI members will be considered.

 

Meet our New 2024 Council Officers

Anne Tebo, President

Anne E. Tebo is a Senior Associate Consultant and Co-Director of the Antibody Immunology Laboratory in Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. Prior to joining the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Tebo was Medical Director of Immunology at ARUP Laboratories and Professor of Pathology at the University of Utah school of Medicine, Salt Lake City. She was also the inaugural Program of the American Society of Microbiology (ASM) Committee on Postgraduate Educational Programs (CPEP)-accredited Clinical Immunology fellowship program in the Department of Pathology, University of Utah School of Medicine. Dr. Tebo’s research interests include development, evaluation, and validation of assays for the diagnosis and management of autoimmune diseases. she is very interested in understanding factors that drive variability in the performance characteristics of routine and esoteric autoantibody tests which is crucial in optimizing intra- and inter-laboratory correlations for improved patient categorization, management, and safety. Through the Association of Medical Laboratory Immunologists (AMLI), Dr. Tebo has led two workshops aimed at improving the interpretation and reporting of antinuclear antibody (ANA) testing. In 2020, Dr. Tebo collaborated with other AMLI colleagues to initiate a webinar series to promote the organization’s educational mission. She has authored more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. She also serves as an ad hoc reviewer for a number clinical and laboratory journals and was on the Editorial Board of the Clinical Vaccine Immunology journal. Dr. Tebo has served on local, national, and international committees to promote the practice of laboratory medicine with emphasis on diagnostic immunology. She currently serves as an AMLI Liaison on the College of American Pathologists (CAP) Diagnostic Immunology and Flow Cytometry Committee (DIFCC), vice chair of the American Society Clinical Pathology (ASCP) Board of Certification (BOC) for Immunology, member of the American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC) Global Laboratory Quality Initiative (GLQI) – Africa Working Group (AWG) and education coordinator of the Health Equity and Access Division (HEAD). In addition to AMLI, she has active membership in AACC and the American College of Rheumatology (ACR).

Lisa Peterson, Vice President

Lisa K. Peterson is an Associate Professor of Pathology at the University of Utah, and a Medical Director of Immunology at ARUP Laboratories. Dr. Peterson received her PhD in Experimental Pathology from the University of Utah and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Immunology at National Jewish Health and the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver, both with an emphasis on autoimmunity and lymphocyte effector function. Dr. Peterson continued her training with a clinical immunology fellowship at the University of Utah. After completing her fellowship, she was board-certified in Medical Laboratory Immunology by the American Board of Medical Laboratory Immunology. Dr. Peterson’s research focus includes both clinical and translational aspects of autoimmune immunology and cellular immunology. The Immunology Laboratory at ARUP Laboratories performs a variety of tests for the evaluation and management of autoimmune and immune deficiency diseases which cuts across many disciplines such as Rheumatology, Neurology, Gastroenterology, Immunology and Hepatology to name a few. In the area of clinical and diagnostic immunology, her main interest is in assay evaluation, development, and standardization. Her group is specifically interested in developing and evaluating state-of-the-art assays to diagnose, predict and/or monitor diverse autoimmune diseases and immune deficiency diseases. She also has a keen interest in the role of neural antibodies in the evaluation and pathogenesis of autoimmune paraneoplastic neurologic syndromes and autoimmune encephalitis.  Dr. Peterson has served on several committees for the Association of Medical Laboratory Immunologists (AMLI) and has organized and chaired multiple sessions at their annual meetings focused on identifying and addressing gaps in education, training, interpretation, reporting and standardization of autoantibody testing. She has published over 30 papers and written several book chapters. She has also served as a guest editor of a special edition on Autoimmune Diagnostics for the Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine, is on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Immunological Methods and has served as an ad hoc reviewer for a number of clinical and laboratory journals. In addition to AMLI, she has active membership in ADLM and the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).

Aaruni Khanolkar, Treasurer

Dr. Khanolkar most recently served as the ABMLI-certified Director of the Diagnostic Immunology and Flow Cytometry Laboratory in the Department of Pathology at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago (LCH), the free-standing, pediatric teaching affiliate of Northwestern University. Dr. Khanolkar also held a faculty appointment as an Associate Professor of Pathology at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. In his role as the laboratory director Dr. oversaw testing covering the areas of inborn errors of immunity, lymphocyte proliferation analyses, allergy testing, hematologic malignancies, infectious disease serology and autoimmune serology (including indirect immunofluorescence). Additionally, the Diagnostic Immunology and Flow Cytometry Laboratory at LCH was the sole Jeffrey Modell Foundation (JMF) Laboratory for Inborn Errors of Immunity (IEI) in the state of Illinois. To this end the laboratory partnered very closely with the immunology service at the hospital to offer several esoteric cellular immunology phenotyping and functional assays to diagnose and manage IEI patients seen at Lurie Children’s. Dr. Khanolkar is also very actively engaged on the immunology education and research fronts. He is a charter member of the Diplomate in Medical Laboratory Immunology Board of Certification (DMLI-BOC) examination committee that operates under the aegis of the American Society for Clinical Pathology-Board of Certification (ASCP-BOC) (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37639224/). On the research front, he is a microbial immunologist by training and his primary scientific expertise lies in utilizing viruses and bacteria as scientific tools to interrogate the functional fitness of antigen-specific T cells and antigen-specific humoral immune responses to better understand host-pathogen dynamics in both patient samples and pre-clinical models of infection. Moreover, as noted above, over the past decade he has also developed a strong academic interest in IEI, as well as investigating the immunologic underpinnings of pediatric hematologic malignancies. He has led several studies on viral immunology including pediatric human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and IEI that have been published in leading virology and immunology journals.

 

AMLI Webinars
An Online Continuing Education Series

 

The first AMLI Webinar of 2024 was held on February 9th and featured Dr. Andrew McKeon, Co-Director of the Neuroimmunology Laboratory at the Mayo Clinic, and a professor of neurology and associate professor of laboratory medicine and pathology at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science.  Dr. McKeon’s lecture was titled “Laboratory Evaluation of Autoimmune Central Nervous System Disorders.”

Our next upcoming AMLI webinar is scheduled for May 13th at 3:00 pm ET and the speaker will be Dr. Vijaya Knight,  University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital, who will be speaking on the “Analysis of cytokines – clinical indications and assay challenges.”

Job Opportunity
Department of Pathology, Division of Laboratory Medicine
THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM

The Department of Pathology, Division of Laboratory Medicine, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham is seeking a Board Certified or Board Eligible pathologist (MD or MD/PhD) at the open rank of Assistant/Associate/Full Professor.

See https://amli.org/job-opportunities-2/ for full job description.

     * * * *

February 2021 Newsletter


AMLI Website Member News
February 2021

Education Committee Updates:

The AMLI Education Committee is preparing to introduce several educational initiatives. As part of this process the Committee has been working closely with the Website and CME Committees to build the structure through the AMLI website that enables the Committee to implement these initiatives.  Amid these ongoing efforts, the Committee is happy to announce that live or prerecorded quarterly webinars will be introduced soon. Topics will include SARS-CoV2/COVID-19 and other pertinent clinical immunology fields. Please stay tuned for further details.

The Education Committee will also be introducing a Listserv program to promote fluid and effective communication among the AMLI members as well as non-members. This allows members to exchange/share ideas and knowledge based on their expertise instantaneously. Announcements and notifications will also be delivered through this channel.

The Committee will offer additional AMLI Educational Materials (Non-AMLI Meeting Presentations):

These educational initiatives include Quarterly live or prerecorded presentations, PowerPoint presentations (audio/video) or Slides without audio/video, Case Studies (with or without quizzes), Methodologies and Regulations (Improved or new Methods, Cutting-edge technologies, Test Validations Matters, Laboratory Regulations), Published articles by AMLI members, nonmembers and others (Links to PubMed or Attached PDF articles).

Target Audience:

Clinical Immunologists with MD or PhD, Trainees (clinical pathology residents and fellows in clinical immunology, clinical microbiology and clinical chemistry), clinical/medical laboratory scientists and medical technologists working in allergy, autoimmune diseases, immunodeficiencies, hematopathology, infections and immunology, transplant immunology fields.  Other audiences could also be clinical microbiologists and infectious disease specialists.

Content of education materials:

  1. Basic/advanced immunology
  2. Clinical immunology (allergy, autoimmune diseases, immunodeficiencies, immune dysregulation, hematopathology, infections and immunology, transplant immunology)
  3. Microbiology (infectious diseases and serology)
  4. CAP/CLIA regulations, method validation
  5. Different test methodologies and test validation

The Journal of Immunological Methods

The Journal of Immunological Methods is excited to re-energize our relationship with the AMLI!  The Journal of Immunological Methods (JIM) provides an outstanding forum for Methods papers covering a wide range of Immunology research relevant to AMLI members.  JIM is proud to support Poster Awards for meritorious posters at the AMLI annual meeting.  We look forward to receiving manuscript submissions related to AMLI meeting submissions, as well as other submissions from AMLI members throughout the year.  Opportunities exist for AMLI members to host Special Issues or prepare Review Articles for JIM, please inquire if you would like further details and we would be happy to hear your proposals.  We look forward to an exciting and productive relationship with AMLI, and to provide a vibrant outlet for your research work.
Tim Niewold, Editor-in-Chief and Amir Sadighi Akha, Associate Editor
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-immunological-methods


AMLI 2020 Distinguished Service Award

The Association of Medical Laboratory Immunologists announced the recipient of the AMLI 2020 Distinguished Service Award.
The Award went to Dr. Vijaya Knight, immediate past President of the AMLI.
Please click here for more about Dr. Knight’s career.

AMLI 2020 Erwin Neter Award

The Association of Medical Laboratory Immunologists announced the recipient of the AMLI 2020 Neter Award.
The Award went to Dr. Thomas Alexander, 2000-2001 past President of the AMLI.
     Please click here for more about Dr. Alexander’s career.