Gregor Rothe - candidate for Clinical Councilor

Following medical studies at the University of Freiburg, Germany, Gregor Rothe joined the Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany, in 1985 where he has been a research fellow until 1992. During this time he focused on functional characterization of phagocytic cells based on fluorogenic substrate technology. Newly developed methods have been applied for the characterization of cellular activation processes during hyperinflammatory response syndromes.

After moving to the newly opened Medical Faculty of the University of Regensburg, Germany, in 1992, Gregor built up the cellular immunology and hematology laboratory. His main interest has been the application of cellular analysis technologies to basic and clinically oriented research on the pathogenesis of acute and chronic inflammatory syndromes. He also was founding member of the European Working Group on Clinical Cells Analysis (EWGCCA) and involved in coordination of the first European Commission grant for the group.

Since 2004 Gregor has worked on the construction of the Laborzentrum Bremen. The center as a new type of service provider in laboratory medicine in Germany at the same time provides all type of laboratory services to a tertiary referral hospital and other hospitals as well as private physicians in Northern Germany.

He is board approved specialist in laboratory medicine and clinical chemistry. As an extramural Professor of the Medical Faculty of the University of Regensburg he is involved in teaching in the fields of clinical chemistry, hematology and immunology. He is author of 69 refereed journal published original papers and 66 journal published review articles or book chapters. Gregor is board member of the European Society for Clinical Cell Analysis (ESCCA) and hosting their annual meeting in 2008 in Bremen. He also runs a committee on flow cytometry in the education and management division of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) and has regularly organized courses on flow cytometry. Finally, he is an associate editor of Cytometry part B, Clinical Cytometry, and editor of a German 1,100-page handbook on cellular diagnostics with an international version in preparation for autumn of this year.

Campaign Statement

Coming from basic research to laboratory diagnostics my view of clinical cytometry is research oriented and I very much feel at home in ISAC with the society’s openness towards new approaches in cell analysis. In my opinion there are three central issues in promoting flow cytometry and cell analysis in general as clinically relevant research technologies:

• Presentation of new technologies and their developing applications in clinical sciences in courses and congresses as well as by offering on-site training to younger scientists.
• Providing strong peer review of our work and presentation of the state of the art and new concepts to colleagues from clinical disciplines on an international scale
• Creating networks for the cooperation and funding of scientists. Research funding in Europe has strongly been oriented towards clinically relevant networking as well as entrepeneurship in the past years and similar concepts are waiting for adaption for new international sources of funding which have come available in the last few years.