Speakers

Rod Jackson, MBChB, PhD

Rod Jackson completed a medical degree in 1977, a PhD in 1989, a fellowship in public health medicine in 1990 and he has been a professor of epidemiology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand since 1999.

He has over 40 years of research experience in cardiometabolic disease epidemiology. For the past 20 years he has developed and led a ‘big-health data’ cardiometabolic research programme that generates very large cohort studies (over 500,000 participants) from web-based clinical decision support systems in primary and secondary care and even larger cohorts (over 2 million) by linking national routine health databases. The main focus of this research programme has been to develop cardiometabolic risk prediction algorithms and to apply these algorithms to large population groups to identify risk-management gaps. He has also taught courses in epidemiology and in evidence-based medicine for about 30 years. He has published over 350 peer-reviewed papers.

Elizabeth Selvin, PhD

Dr. Elizabeth Selvin is a Professor of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and holds a joint appointment in the School of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine. She is the author or co-author of over 550 papers in the peer-reviewed literature. Dr. Selvin has devoted her career to leading translational research projects designed to evaluate and improve screening, diagnosis, and patient care for persons with diabetes. Her work has directly influenced clinical practice guidelines for diagnosis and management of diabetes.

In 2013, she was awarded the Harry Keen Memorial Award by the International Diabetes Epidemiology Group of the International Diabetes Federation for her contributions to the field. She was the 2020 winner of the Kelly M. West Award for Outstanding Achievement in Epidemiology from the American Diabetes Association. Dr. Selvin is a Deputy Editor of Diabetes Care. She serves on committees of the American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, International Diabetes Federation, National Glycohemoglobin Standardization Program (NGSP), and the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry.

Since the start of her academic career, Dr. Selvin has been continually funded as a principal investigator on grants from the National Institutes of Health (>$20M in funding). She has mentored or co-mentored over 65 students and fellows, many of whom are now leaders in the field.

Monica de Baca, MD

Dr. de Baca is the VP of Medical Affairs at Sysmex America. She is a Hematopathologist with board certification in clinical pathology, anatomic pathology and hematology in addition to having a specialty in ophthalmology. Dr. de Baca is active in her profession: she is a Past President of Association of Pathology Informatics and currently sits on the Board of Governors of the College of American Pathologists. Dr. de Baca’s varied research interests include clinical informatics, hematologic malignancies, and flow cytometry.

Please welcome Dr. de Baca who discuss the theory and principles of flow technology and how it has evolved over the last few decades.

Lecture Abstract

Prediabetes is often described as the precursor to type 2 diabetes, with screening and treatment practices in place to improve patient outcomes. By identifying at-risk patients, combining dietary and lifestyle changes with drug therapy can circumvent disease progression. However, some argue that prediabetes is a controversial diagnostic label lacking both validation and clinical relevance. This event will lay out pro and con arguments to debate the existence and clinical value of the prediabetic label.

Objectives: Understanding pros and cons of accepting “prediabetes” as a diagnostic entity.

• Hear key points to support prediabetes as a valuable diagnostic entity with preventative benefits.
• Hear key points to counter that prediabetes is a useless label, devoid of clinical relevance.
• Select the debate position that most effectively defends and substantiates the relevance of the prediabetic label.