 | Dr. Ali Bumajdad Kuwait University, Kuwait |
TITLE:
Application of Electron, and Atomic Force Microscopy to Nanotechnology
ABSTRACT:
This talk concerns Nanoscience and Nanotechnology and the application of Electron Microscopy and Atomic probe Microscopy in those fields. The focus will be given to two types of instruments, namely, High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HR-TEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). The results obtained by my group in the past few years using these two instruments will be discussed here. Particular attention will be given to metal oxide nanoparticles such as Fe2O3, TiO2, CeO2 and MgO and their industrial applications.
 | Dr. Ute Pieper Health EnviroTech & Logistics Germany |
TITLE:
Swine Flue & Co. – New challenges for Biosafety in Laboratories?
ABSTRACT:
In the last years new infectious diseases like SARS, avian influenza and swine influenza virus were identified and are threatening human and animal life. Are workers in Laboratories in healthcare and research facilities, who are handling biological agents, facing higher occupational risks? Do we need additional precautions? The presentation is providing answers and specific information about precautions.
BIOGRAPHY:
Dr. Pieper got her PhD in Environmental Technology and Engineering (Dr.-Eng.). She studied at the Technical University of Berlin and is Project Manager for infection control, healthcare waste and biosafety projects on behalf of the company ETLog Health GmbH. Beside project coordination, she is concentrating on planning of internal and external logistic for the collection, transport, storage and treatment of healthcare waste – with focus on hazardous waste. As Dr. Pieper is a certified radiation protection expert (RPE), she is working on the sound management of radioactive waste generated in healthcare facilities. Also she is responsible for feasibility studies for the implementing of healthcare waste concepts on regional and provincial level and for Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) including Risk Assessment (RA).
Dr. Pieper is expert for vocational training of healthcare and laboratory workers, monitoring authorities and logistic staff. She is responsible for the development and set up of the training modules and for the implementation phase following the training. In this scope she has composed several Compendia for the management of healthcare waste in different countries. Within the last 7 years, Dr. Pieper has successfully worked on healthcare waste projects in Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Germany, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Jordan, Nepal, P.R. China, Nepal, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, Vietnam, Yemen and Zambia.
 | Dr. Markus Laeubli Metrohm International Headquarters, Herisau Switzerland |
TITLE:
Intelligent Ion Chromatography for Water & Petrochemical Analysis
ABSTRACT:
Ion chromatography is used in many areas in petrochemistry. Due to the organic and lipophilic character of oil and its products a direct analysis is impossible in many cases. Sample preparation is required. Traditional approaches are usually tedious, time consuming and quite expensive. Here intelligent Metrohm Inline Sample Preparation opens a interesting alternative. In this presentation we will show some of these techniques like inline ultrafiltration, inline dialysis, inline dilution, intelligent partial loop injection, inline extraction, combustion IC, etc. Examples shown are the application of extraction and dialysis for the determination of ions in gasoline, Combustion IC for the halogen and sulfur content in oil, automatic logical dilution of wastewater, produced water analysis and many more.
BIOGRAPHY:
Dr. Markus Lauebli has been working with Metrohm AG for more than 25 years and associated with the development of the Ion Chromatography system, applications, techniques and accessories. He is responsible for marketing support for Metrohm IC products worldwide.
 | Dr. Abubaker Hamed Ali Salem |
TITLE:
Laboratory Management in Chemical Pathology
ABSTRACT:
Chemical Pathology is one of the areas of pathology that is concerned with diagnosis and monitoring of disease through the measurement of changes in the chemical composition of blood, urine and other body fluids. This is the most automated area of a modern diagnostic laboratory and there is a great deal of emphasis on the accuracy and precision of the results that are produced.
Medical Laboratory services should meet the needs of all patients and clinical personnel responsible for human health care
To ensure the highest quality of laboratory services (that is able to satisfy customers’ needs)
To guide the full range of quality assurance, quality control, and continuous quality improvement activities.
 | Mr. Andy Saleh MedLabs Consultancy Group Jordan |
TITLE:
Preanalytical variables and their impact on the quality of laboratory testing
ABSTRACT:
Modern clinical laboratories around the world are now enjoying the benefit of decades of development in technology. "state of the art" instrumentation are common in most laboratories, including routine procedures such as chemistry and hematology profile as well as more specialized testing such as immunochemistry and coagulation assays.
These advances have delivered significant gains in analytical performance in terms of precision, accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. Complementing these gains has been a steady improvement in quality control and quality assurance programs within clinical laboratories. Concurrently, there has been an increase in the level of participation in external quality assurance programs. All of this has combined to deliver high standards of analytical performance within the laboratory walls.
For many years however, there has been increasing recognition that the situation is less favorable in the preanalytical phase of the testing process. Since preanalytical errors have been reported to account for more than two thirds of all laboratory errors, it is clear that improvements in this area will deliver the greatest incremental gains in the overall quality of clinical laboratory services.
Quality improvement in the preanalytical phase helps laboratories to provide more timely and accurate test results for clinicians, which are also crucial in terms of patient outcome and healthcare institution operating costs. In this presentation, we examine common causes of sub-optimal specimen quality, the implications for test result error and the steps that can be taken to overcome these problems whilst achieving consistently safe and efficient specimen collection with good test turn around time .
BIOGRAPHY:
Andy Saleh BA, BSc, MT (ASCP) is a graduate of Governors State University, Chicago Illinois. USA. He is board certified by the American Society of Clinical Pathology. Mr. Saleh is a certified Laboratory Inspector by The College of American Pathologists as well as a trained ISO 15189 Auditor.
Currently, he is the Chief Quality Officer at MedLabs Consultancy Group which oversees the ISO and CAP based Quality Management System for over 30 Laboratories in three countries.
 | Dr. M. A. Gondal King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals Saudi Arabia |
TITLE:
Advanced Laser Based Techniques and Their Applications in Pollution Monitoring
ABSTRACT:
The atmospheric chemistry is very complex and many effects are taking place at nano and pico second scale in the atmosphere. The concentration of many green house gases in the upper atmosphere varies in the range of ppb and ppt level. Most of the conventional techniques applied currently for atmospheric pollution monitoring are not reliable, non-selective, less sensitive and not remote. Real time and accurate monitoring of atmospheric pollution and weather forecasting is important not only for clean environment but for chemical war fare, defense, weather forecasting, communication (transportation) and mitigation of natural catastrophes like cyclones, severe storms, floods, tornados etc.
Keeping in view the severity of the pollution and atmospheric environmental problems, there is growing interest in the development of laser remote sensors for rapid and accurate analytical characterization of chemical species present in air, fuel (diesel, coal etc) rocks, minerals, metallurgy, industrial products, industrial waste disposal sites, soil and water samples and many other applications. More efficient laser based techniques are now replacing the conventional, time-consuming and laborious techniques of wet-chemical analysis. The volume of measurements to be performed by conventional techniques has also a prohibitive cost in order to acquire samples and to take them to a laboratory for analysis. This presentation will discuss the newly emerging laser based techniques like LIDAR, LIBS and Photoacoustic for pollution monitoring being developed at KFUPM. It is worth mentioning that these techniques are being applied on vast scale in advanced countries to resolve many environmental issues and problems on global and regional scale. The unique features of laser based techniques are high selectivity, high sensitivity, high dynamic range (ppm –ppt) real time monitoring, in situ detection and remoteness..
BIOGRAPHY:
Dr. Mohammed Ashraf Gondal is a professor at Physics Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals(KFUPM) Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He received his Ph.D. in Laser Physics from Kaiser Wilhelm University Bonn, Germany in 1983. He has worked as a Senior Research Scientist at the Post Graduate Center for Lasers and Electro-optics, Tripoli (1983-1991), before joining KFUPM in November 1991. Dr. Gondal’s research interests are in the areas of, laser remote sensing, pollution monitoring using lasers, development of laser based high sensitive analytical techniques (LIDAR, PAS, LIBS,LEI), synthesis of nano-structured materials using laser and their applications in laser-photo-catalysis for water purification, corrosion inhibition, production of high value hydrocarbons & hydrogen generation for fuel cells development, and laser desulfurization of crude oil and atomic and molecular spectroscopy using lasers. He is the author/co-author of 190 research articles in refereed journals/conferences and three patents that have been published by USPTO. He received the Distinguished Researcher Award from KFUPM in 2005,Best Project Award (2009) and several best paper awards at various international conferences. He is a Member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Spectroscopy, Arabian Journal of Science and Engineering and the Pakistan Journal of Analytical Chemistry and Environment. He served also as an associate member of the International Center of Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy (1989-1995), Research Advisory Board of KFUPM (2006-2008) and currently member of Scientific Research Council of KFUPM.
 | Brian S. Freeman |
TITLE:
Improving Laboratory Quality Control Through Automatic Data Checking
ABSTRACT:
Laboratory results created through analytical processes must be collected, stored and distributed in order to get to end-users. New automated systems have the ability to rapidly process and send analysis data to a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) or local database through e-mail or other electronic interface. The chain of custody that data goes through before it gets to the end-user may require many media formats and transfer protocols that corrupt data before it is populated into the LIMS. Simple actions such as placing an alpha-numeric string in a data field that is formatted only for integers may cause searching and querying problems during post-analysis review. Implementing an in-line data checker with pre-established rules ensures that data generated during laboratory processes not only are properly formatted, but also meets pre-established result ranges. By controlling quality on data before it is included in the database, poor data can be immediately highlighted and provide a clear trail to its source instead of first identifying the bad data, then hunting its origins after the fact. The data-checker can also be used for outgoing data sent from the LIMS to a client to ensure that there are no format errors, missing data, or out of range problems. A data-checker can also be implemented to alert assigned people when actions take place such as when the database is updated, when data are rejected (and the reasons why), or when a particular datum exceeds an action threshold. Case studies showing actual data checking solutions are included.
 | Dr. Nina Parkinson Bapco Refinery Laboratory Technical Services Department Bahrain |
TITLE:
A study of a technical response in the field of gas chromatography to changing market and technology demands
ABSTRACT:
This paper will consider market driven changes for petroleum products and testing requirements, as well as developments in testing methodology. It will then outline a strategy for further development of gas chromatography to meet some of the testing and analytical requirements which are increasingly encountered as a consequence of these developments.
It is a generally acknowledged fact that analytical chemistry is one of the most fundamental importance not only to all branches of chemistry but also to all the sciences, to engineering, the environment and indeed the supply of energy in all its forms.
There is also a global awareness that the world of energy and chemical technology is changing ever more rapidly. However, these changes are now taking place so fast that progress in the related technology i.e. testing technology faces a major challenge to advance at the same speed.
Moreover in the energy field an increasing variety of petroleum feedstocks has produced an ever diversifying array of petroleum products and in tandem with them the pressing need to identify any product contamination at trace level (<ppb)which can have a negative impact on product quality and the environment .
A further factor which plays an important role in the requirement for rapid advancement in petroleum analysis is the value of petroleum products in the market which depends upon their quality and fitness for the specific market. In parallel with this, the development of laboratory instrumentation over the last decades has been one of the forces shaping analytical standards and improved instrumentation has already changed approaches to petroleum analysis. As a consequence of these two factors, petroleum laboratories are under considerable pressure to meet the technology that today’s markets demand, whilst at the same time working in strict accordance with the designated analytical regulatory methods.
To help resolve challenging issues, laboratories sometimes turn to instrument vendors for advice on methodological advances and to have instrumentation customized according to their specific testing requirements.
In the light of the above it is intended to highlight the need for further development in the use of gas chromatographic methods for the analysis of trace oxygenates as a contaminant in complicated petroleum oil slop. Additionally, it is intended to evaluate how the use of such a single technique employing only gas chromatography can, nevertheless, provide the accurate, reliable and yet rapid results which are required today by the petroleum industry.
BIOGRAPHY:
Dr Nina Parkinson (C Chem FRSC, FEI ) is currently working in the capacity of Senior Chemist Analysers at the Bahrain Petroleum Company.
Dr Parkinson was educated in the UK to post graduate level, attaining her MSc in Analytical Chemistry from Bristol University and her PhD in the Characterisation of Fuel Additives from Surrey University. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Chartered Chemist and also a Fellow of the Energy Institute in the UK. Additionally, she holds the International Diploma in Safety Management (I Dip SM) awarded by the British Safety Council.
During her professional career she has pioneered and managed major laboratory and testing projects both in the UK and overseas for international organisations and British companies.
Throughout this time she also initiated and delivered a number of technical papers, which were presented to large international audiences from within the oil and gas industry.
 | Dr. Yazeed A. Al-Sheikh King Saud University Saudi Arabia |
TITLE:
Genomics, Bioinformatics and the path to Personalized Medicine
ABSTRACT:
Medical laboratory science is one of the fastest and most diversely growing areas of medicine. Furthermore, the lines dividing the different and conventional disciplines of medical sciences are becoming increasingly vague due to an emergence of common advanced genomic molecular methodologies. Here, we will discuss the new areas of medical laboratory sciences and the inevitable role they well serve in the future of health care in the form of Personalized Medicine.
BIOGRAPHY:
Qualifications:
Bsc in Clinical laboratory Sciences from King Saud University 1999
Msc in Molecular Genetics from the University of Glasgow 2002
PhD in Cancer Genetics from the University of Glasgow 2007
Currant positions:
Assistant Professor of Cancer Genetics
Chairman, Dept of Clinical Laboratory Sciences, College of Applied Medical Sciences at King Saud University
President of The Saudi Society of Clinical Laboratory Sciences: http://www.sscls.org.sa/
Superviosr of the Chair of Medical and Molecular Genetics Research http://www.chairofgenetics.com/
 | Mr. Kuppusamy Uthaman, |
TITLE:
Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Laboratory technology and measurement
AUTHORS:
Issa Al-Jadi -Team Leader Water Handling Team (SEK)
K. Uthaman, Chief Chemist- Water Handling Team (SEK)- presenting author
ABSTRACT:
Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) is a leader in gas & oil industry of the region and operates many laboratories in the production areas of oil fields in SEK, WK and NK areas. SEK alone has three labs, one for crude oil & gas in Burgan and two water labs for effluent water plants in Burgan and Magwa areas. Burgan lab is a brand new lab wherein many safety requirements were not followed in the design stage and are in the process of modification to meet HSE requirements. Being a crude lab with flammable hydrocarbon vapors presence, extra precautions were required in selecting equipment, electrical classification and fume hoods selection.
As regards to lab data capture, all data are computerized and fed into a data base, eliminating paper reports. Also, as a quality control, validation process is introduced and abnormal results are flagged. Continuous updating of operating procedures are carried out and new techniques are introduced to suit to the sample type and based on sample handling experience.
These experiences which we had in KOC will be a vital information of sharing and exchange for all attendees.
BIOGRAPHY:
Mr. Kuppusamy Uthaman is the Chief Chemist in Kuwait Oil Company and holds a dual degree in B.Sc (1973 of Madras University) and B. Sc (Chemical Engineering). He is a full Member (MCIC) in Canadian Society of Chemistry and Chemical Institute of Canada. He is long associated with Kuwait Oil Company- 25 years in crude/gas labs, Effluent water/sea water treatment labs and chemical treatment programs in crude oil processing plants. Earlier, he worked in reputed concerns in India and 6 years with Saudi-ARAMCO in Gas Oil Separator Plants and Gas Injection plants. Currently, he is in charge of all South East Kuwait labs and is also fully involved in oil field chemicals issues, their selection and field trials, scaling/corrosion problems, equipment failures, Chemical injection systems and logistics for Bulk storage/supply contracts, staff development etc.
 | Dr. Mohammad Alenezi |
TITLE:
Total Quality Management for Laboratories
ABSTRACT:
The current pressure and demand from the laboratories and industries is to improve the quality of the work and at the same time to reduce the cost. For these two issues, a process termed TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) have been implanted. This process (TQM), by different principles can lead to a development of both work organization and quality management which will improve the quality and reduce the waste and the cost. For work organization, a clear system with identified responsibilities and power is needed. For quality management, there are different guidelines and methodology to improve the quality of the work. In this lecture, we will discuss the total quality management and its principles and also we will discuss how we can improve both the work organization and the quality system.
 | Dr. Andre’ Hauser , Dr. Fatma Ali , Ms. Bashayer Al-Dosari |
TITLE:
Application of Near Infrared Spectroscopy Databases in QC/QA of Food & Feed Production
AUTHORS:
Dr. Andre’ Hauser,
Dr. Fatma Ali,
Ms. Bashayer Al-Dosari
ABSTRACT:
Today, Near Infrared (NIR) Spectroscopy belongs to the basic tools in QC/QA of food and feed products. The advantage of NIR is that it usually needs no sample preparation and the analysis takes only few seconds. By NIR spectroscopy it is possible to acquire chemical information because it detects overtones of vibrational modes of C-H, O-H and N-H chemical bonds, which are commonly found in food and feed products. This information, however, is obscured by overlapping NIR signals and changes in the spectra caused by physical properties of the sample. To overcome this drawback and to obtain quantitative information from NIR extensive calibration against a large number of reference samples is required. Normally this calibration is carried out using chemometric methods. A number of NIR analyses using commercially available databases for calibration and carried out at Central Analytical Laboratories of Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research in the field of food and feed production are discussed.
BIOGRAPHY:
Dr. A. Hauser joined KISR in 1992. In 1978, Dr. Hauser obtained his PhD from the Humboldt University, Germany and completed in 1981 a postgraduate study on analytic and spectroscopy. Over the last 17 years he participated in 13 research projects and had several publications (37 articles, 21 conference papers, 22 KISR-reports).
Dr. F. Ali joined KISR in 1984. In 1996, Dr. Ali obtained her PhD from the Kent University, UK. Over the last 13 years she participated in 9 research projects and had several publications (16 articles, 11 conference papers, 17 KISR-reports).
Ms. B. Al-Dosari joined KISR in 2009. She is working as lab-technician in CAL/KISR and is in charge of NIR analysis.
 | Dr. Antonio Casares |
TITLE:
Energy-Filtering Transmission Electron Microscopy (EFTEM)
ABSTRACT:
In a transmission electron microscope (TEM), the elastic and inelastic scattering processes constitute the most relevant interactions between the incident electrons from the primary electron beam and the specimen and provide a natural source for analytical investigations.
In the elastically scattered electrons in particular, through which the electrons lose energy passing through the sample, contain a large amount of information on the structure of the specimen, for example its mass distribution of elements and molecules.
As the .-filter is incorporated as a core feature in the TEM column, the exploitation of his excellent performances is easy and straightforward and provides a wider range of different operating mode than a conventional TEM, such as Electron Energy Loss Spectrum (EELS), Electron Spectroscopic Imaging (ESI) and Electron spectroscopic diffraction (ESD).
EEL Spectra and Electron Spectroscopic Imaging (ESI) can be acquired in very short time; switching between these working modes is easy and fast. These analytical methods are routinely and successfully applied in all fields of nanotechnology investigations, from material science to biology.
TITLE:
The Helium Ion Microscope: Technology and Applications
ABSTRACT:
The helium ion microscope offers new windows into nanoscale imaging due to a combination of high source brightness and unique sample interaction dynamics. These dynamics allow new types of sample information to be gathered. Some fundamental advantages conferred by probing a surface with a helium ion beam are the high contrast, surface sensitivity, and the ability to image low atomic weight materials, such as carbon. The low mass of helium implies that there is a new image acquisition mode available via the collection and analysis of backscattered ions. This talk will give with an explanation of the concepts behind the workings of the helium ion source and ion optics. We will then review several recent applications developments that highlight what can be achieved. Comparisons to SEM imaging will be provided also to provide further insight into the different image information found in the helium ion microscope.
BIOGRAPHY:
Dr. Antonio Casares from the International Sales and Business Development of Carl Zeiss NTS is responsible for sales activities for electron and charged beam particle systems for the region Latin America and Middle East.
Antonio holds a diploma in biophysics achieved at the University of Giessen, Germany where he also earned his doctor’s degree (summa cum laude) in Charged Particle Optics.
Antonio was employed with the Max-Planck „Institut für Aeronomie“in Germany as Instrument Scientist for Aerospace Application and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the USA as Instrument Scientist for Short Live Nuclide Investigations before he joined Carl Zeiss Strategic Business Development at the CZ-Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology (SMT) in August 2002.
 | Mr. Mohammad Ourani |
TITLE:
Lean Six Sigma in the Laboratory
ABSTRACT:
Lean and Six Sigma are among the many management systems and methods which have produced the greatest success. Six Sigma is a rigorous, data-oriented approach to drive excellence in business performance and deliver “virtual perfection.” It not only improves quality to deliver business results and accelerate growth, but also reduces costs, ultimately delivering extraordinary profits to our shareholders, in favor of this time of economic strife.
At Quest Diagnostic Laboratories, USA, we employed one of the most powerful lean tools called Kaizen. The term kaizen is a Japanese word for “continuous improvement" or "philosophy of improvement”. We targeted a 10% productivity improvement of specimen processing at the microbiology laboratory.
As a leader of this Six Sigma project, I formed a project team of subject matter experts (SMEs) within the laboratory to work on this event. The team did a waste walk along the workflow from the time specimens arrive in the lab to the time specimens were incubated. The entire process was mapped out and process data was collected to measure baseline. We proceeded with implementing a fish-bone diagram to investigate the root cause of the non-value added steps in the process. The solutions were prioritized, and then ranked according to high impact to achieving project goals and ease of implementation of the solution. Although our target was to improve productivity by 10%, the productivity by the end of the project was improved by 30%, financially evaluated to a nearly $150,000 annually in cost reduction.
Conclusively, the Kaizen event has proven to be a very powerful lean tool, and should be repeatedly practiced in all businesses at all levels.
BIOGRAPHY:
Graduated from Jordan University from the College of Applied Science majoring in Biological Analysis, thereafter, receiving a MSc Degree in Laboratory Science from Long
Island University, Brooklyn, New York. During my 17 year tenure in clinical laboratories in the United States, combining hospital based settings, as well as reference laboratories; I have occupied various leadership positions in the areas of laboratory management and quality assurance. I am a board Certified Medical Technologist and Microbiology Specialist by the American Society of clinical Pathologist (ASCP), certified Laboratory Inspector and Team Leader by The College of American Pathologists (CAP) as well as a trained Six Sigma Black Belt (SSBB). Additionally, I am a member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ).
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