45th ACBI Annual Conference

Initially educated/trained as a Biochemist, I transitioned to working as a Forensic
Toxicologist in the MBRS, UCD, where he has been for the last 10 years. In this role as
toxicologist I am responsible for performing routine analysis of drugs of abuse from
blood/urine samples provided by An Garda Síochána from drivers suspected of being under the influence of drugs. This analysis is largely LCMS/MS based and focuses on small molecules known to be psychoactive. I have extensive method development and
troubleshooting experience with triple quad MS instruments, as well as experience in Matrix
Effects studies, Sample Preparation, HPLC, and working to ISO-17025.  I am vice-chair of the IMSS (Irish Mass Spectrometry Society) and part-time lecturer in forensic toxicology in Technological University Dublin (TUD).

Professor for laboratory medicine at the Department for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory medicine of the University Hospital Salzburg (Paracelsus private University Salzburg).

National Activities:

Chair of the section “Extraanalytical Phase” of the Austrian national laboratory society (ÖGLMKC)

International activities:

Chair of the European Federation of Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) -“Working Group Preanalytical Phase” (WG-PRE)

Expert/Consultant of the EFLM Working Group “Artificial Intelligence” (WG-AI)

Member of the EFLM-“Working Group Postanalytical Phase” (WG-POST)

Member of the working group of “medical informatics” of the German Society of Clinical Chemistry (DGKL)

Research:

>100 publications, H-Index 24; ~2000 citations

Section editor of the Journal “Biochemia Medica” for the section “Preanalytical Mysteries”  ISSN · 1330-0962

Assistant editor of the Journal “Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine”  ISSN: 1437-4331

Assistant editor of the “Journal of Laboratory and Precision Medicine”  ISSN: 2519-9005

MD, PhD, FRCP (UK), FRCPI

Fidelma Dunne  is a Professor in Medicine at University of Galway Ireland, and Consultant Endocrinologist at Galway University Hospitals. Professor Dunne is a member of the Diabetes in Pregnancy Study Group (DPSG), past President of the International Association Diabetes in Pregnancy Study Groups (IADPSG 2016-2022). She was a Fulbright scholar (2014-2015) at Columbia University New York, is an Adjunct Professor at Steno Diabetes Research Centre in Odense, Denmark (2020-2025), President of the Irish Endocrine Society (2021-2024) and National Specialty Director for Endocrinology training (2023-2026).

Her research interest is in diabetes and pregnancy with >220 peer review publications, 11,000 citations, H index of 56 and >22m euro in grant funding. Her research group are conducting a number of studies as part of the ATLANTIC DIP programme. She has completed an IMP regulated RCT of Metformin in pregnancies complicated by GDM (EMERGE), has investigated the utility of a biomarker (CD59) for GDM diagnosis and follow up and has completed a 10 year follow up (metabolic and cardiovascular) of women with prior GDM. In addition, she has been involved in investigator initiated international studies including a European funded (FP7) trial on prevention of GDM (DALI) and a JDRF funded CONCEPTT trial of continuous glucose monitoring (CGMS) in pregnant women with Type 1 Diabetes. More recently she has been the Irish lead for a pan European cohort study examining pregnancy outcomes of women with Type 1/Type 2 diabetes (EVOLVE) and the EXPECT study examining insulin Degludec (Tresiba) in women with Type 1 Diabetes in pregnancy. She is the PI of the Health Research Board All Ireland Collaborative Clinical Trial Network in Diabetes (2021-2026).

Dr Tomas Griffin is a Consultant Physician/Senior Lecturer in Medicine at University Hospital Limerick/University of Limerick. He is a graduate of the school of Medicine at the University of Galway (First Honour). He completed a PhD entitled, “The Role of Novel Biomarkers in Addressing the Burden of Chronic Kidney Disease in Diabetes Mellitus” at the University of Galway. In addition, he holds a Masters in Clinical Research (First Honour) and a Higher Diploma in Clinical Education (First Honour) from the University of Galway.

Dr Griffin was awarded and completed a competitive Clinical Fellowship in Diabetes Technology with a special focus on diabetes in pregnancy at the prestigious Leicester Diabetes Research Centre (2021-2022), a paragon of diabetes research.  He is an honorary Fellow at the University of Leicester and a Clinical Consultant in Diabetes Communication Technology at the University of Dundee. Dr Griffin was previously the clinical lead for the Insulin Pump/Technology services at Galway University Hospitals, Ireland. He was the local lead for the roll-out of the Hybrid Closed Loop Insulin Pump Pilot at Leicester General Hospital.. In addition to multiple academic publications, Dr Griffin has received national and international awards for his research.

Prof Eamon Keenan is a Consultant Psychiatrist in Substance Misuse and has been working in the
area of Addiction since the late 1980s.
Since January 2016, he has been working as National Clinical Lead for Addiction Services within the
HSE based in the National Social Inclusion Office. He represents the HSE on the National Oversight
Committee with responsibility for implementation of the National Drug and Alcohol Strategy,
‘Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery’. He also represents the HSE on a broad range of National
committees where Addiction issues are relevant
He is one of the two Irish representatives on the management board of the European Monitoring
Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and one of the Irish representatives on the EU
National Drug Co-ordinators Group.
He is also a Clinical Professor in Addiction Studies at the Department of Public Health and Primary
Care, Trinity College Dublin and has published extensively in both national and international peer
reviewed medical journals with a particular interest in the emergence of New Psychoactive
Substances in Ireland.

Dr Graham Lee is Consultant Clinical Biochemist at the Mater Misericordiae
University Hospital (MMUH) and Mater Private Hospital Dublin, Midlands Hospital
Mullingar and National Orthopaedic Hospital Cappagh, Dublin. Following a period of
post-doctoral research into diabetic retinopathy at Queens University Belfast his
training in clinical diagnostics was attained in the UK culminating in Fellowship of the
Royal College of Pathologists in 2010. He has experience working in many clinical
biochemistry laboratories and healthcare settings in Northern Ireland, East Midlands,
London and the Republic of Ireland. He is Associate Professor at University College
Dublin where he is course director of the MSc in Clinical and Diagnostic
Biochemistry and coordinator of several course modules. He is Past-President of
the Association of Clinical Biochemists in Ireland and previous Chair of the ACB’s
Republic of Ireland (ROI) region as well as ACB ROI regional tutor. He is a
European Specialist in Laboratory Medicine (EuSpLM) and his contributions to the
European Federation of Laboratory Medicine include corresponding member of the
Task Group for the EFLM’s Post-graduate Syllabus Course and coordinator of the
course’s Liver module. He has worked on several Irish national programmes
including the National Clinical Programme for Cancer and the National Clinical
Programme for Pathology.

Dr. Dan McCartney BSc/Dip Diet, MSc, PhD, MINDI, SRD is an academic dietitian with postgraduate training in molecular medicine and public health nutrition. He has been Director of Human Nutrition & Dietetics at TU Dublin and Trinity College Dublin since 2015, and is also a former columnist with The Irish Examiner and a former Public Relations Officer with the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute, the professional body for dietitians in Ireland. His research on the dietary management of obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer has been nationally and internationally recognised, whilst his work in the area of nutrition in pregnancy has also been widely published. Recently, he has played a leading role with his colleagues in the Covit-D Consortium in investigating the role of vitamin D deficiency in the Covid-19 pandemic. He has sat on statutory expert committees for the Food Safety Authority of Ireland and is a longstanding member of the Irish Heart Foundation’s Nutrition Council.

Sinéad McNamara is a Senior Biochemist in the HSE National Drug Treatment Centre Laboratory. 
She has over 20 years experience in Forensic Toxicology specialising in the analysis of urine for drugs using LC-MS and GC-MS.  For the last 10 years she has been working on development and updating of methods for the detection of New Psychoactive Substances in urine to enable trend monitoring of
drug use in the addiction population and related research. Recent highlights have included carrying
out analysis for the first Irish Syringe Analysis Pilot Project and carrying out testing at the first 'back of house' drug monitoring pilot project in Ireland at Electric Picnic in 2022, work which is continuing
in the 2023 festival season.

Carla Moran is a Consultant Endocrinologist at the Beacon Hospital in Dublin and Associate Professor at University College Dublin.  Dr Moran has a particular interest in thyroidology, having completed a thyroid fellowship and PhD characterising human aspects of Resistance to Thyroid Hormone (RTH) at the Institute of Metabolic Science and Cambridge University Hospital, UK. She led the thyroid service in Cambridge for 5 years, where she developed specialist thyroid services and directed a national referral service for patients with unusual thyroid function tests.

Subspecialty areas of expertise include disorders of Thyroid Hormone action (such as Syndromes of Resistance to Thyroid Hormone), investigation of discordant TFTs and drug induced thyroid dysfunction.

Dr Moran has established a referral service for rare thyroid disease in Dublin and continues to perform research through collaboration with the University of Cambridge. She has published over 60 peer reviewed papers, book chapters and reviews, with a current H-index of 23. Dr Moran regularly contributes to international conferences as an invited speaker (over 70 invited lectures to date) and is an invited member of UK & European guideline development committees for thyroid disease.

Dr Adrian Moughty is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine in the Mater Hospital in Dublin
and has been in his current role since 2012. He has previously trained in Ireland, the United
Kingdom and Australia and is the local lead for the Euro-DEN study. He has a special interest
in Medical Toxicology and is currently undertaking an MSc in Medical Toxicology through
Cardiff University.

Helena Scully obtained a First Class Honours in her Food Science Undergraduate Degree from UCD in 2011. She followed this with a Masters in Human Nutrition from the University of Ulster in 2012 and was awarded Distinction.

She has worked in biomedical research since 2013, in a variety of topics including maternal and childhood nutrition, bone health, breastfeeding and obesity research. During this time, she joined UCD as a Study Coordinator, managing a longitudinal investigation of 200 twin pairs across Ireland, focused on the genetic and environmental factors of physical and mental health. Prior to this, she spent a year in Cambridge, UK as a Research Assistant in the Bone Health Group at the Elise Widdowson Laboratory with the Medical Research Council.

Helena joined the Mercers Institute at St James’s Hospital in February 2019 as a Research Fellow and in March 2020, undertook a PhD in Public Health at Trinity College Dublin examining vitamin D status and determinants in the Irish population. As part of this research she collaborated with other research groups including Technical University Dublin and researchers within Trinity, looking at the socioeconomic determinants of health, including vitamin D status and COVID prevalence.

Recently she defended her dissertation and was awarded her PhD, having published all five chapters of her thesis. Her vitamin D research has contributed to public health policy and has been widely reported in national print and broadcast media. She has also written articles and blogs and has appeared on Ireland:AM and the Karl Henry Real Health Podcast.

Currently Helena works as a Research Project Manager with Children’s Health Ireland based in Crumlin Children’s hospital. Here she coordinates Seed Funded projects investigating novel paediatric research.

Helen Seddon is a clinical scientist at Derbyshire Pathology, covering 3 laboratories in the region (Derby, Chesterfield and Burton). Over the last 12 years she has been part of a team that have collaborated to bring together local clinicians from primary and secondary care with laboratory scientists to produce evidence based and best practice guidelines for primary care. These enable better interpretation of blood test results and guide patient management and are now valued by local clinicians and used nationally.

Helen is passionate about improving communication between laboratory scientists and clinicians and in 2022 the Derbyshire Shared Care Pathology team won a Royal College of Pathologists achievement award for their work.

Huub van Rossum is a specialist in laboratory medicine and clinical chemistry at the Netherlands Cancer Institute. He has a background in analytical chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences and followed his training for becoming a specialist in laboratory medicine in The Bronovo hospital in The Hague, Leiden University Medical Center (Netherlands) and Stanford Medical Center (USA). Next he worked for about a year in the University Medical Center in Utrecht on the implementation of best practice QC. In 2015 he started his company Huvaros (www.huvaros.com) that markets MA Generator, an application that supports the laboratory specific optimization and validation of patient-based real-time QC. Since 2014 Huub works as a laboratory specialist in the Netherlands Cancer Institute – Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital in Amsterdam. Here he is responsible, for routine clinical diagnostics including chemistry, immunochemistry, hematology and blood transfusion. In 2020 he co-founded SelfSafeSure Blood Collection B.V. that aims to markets the Topper blood self-collection technology. His current research focuses on patient-based real-time quality control and assurance, the diagnostic validation of longitudinal (tumor) biomarkers, tumor marker harmonization, sensitive steroid analysis using LC-MS for breast and prostate cancer and implementation of all of these in routine clinical practice.

Mairéad Webster is currently leading the toxicology screening strategy in the State Laboratory. Mairéad has been involved in the area of post mortem toxicology for the last 13 years and has extensive experience in providing support and advice to the clients, case reporting and acting as an expert witness as required.  She is passionate about driving change and process improvements, ensuring that that the State Laboratory are up to date with any emerging drug trends and are using modern and up to date technology to support this analysis.  She has an honours degree in analytical chemistry.

Mairéad led the team that received an award in the Civil Service Excellence and Innovation Awards in 2016. She is passionate about her job and continues to optimise and improve the service to the client.