The North American Chinese Clinical Chemists Association (NACCCA), an organization within the Association for Diagnostics and Laboratory Medicine (ADLM), awarded its 2024 Distinguished Contribution to Education Award to Pathology Professor John Toffaletti, PhD, whose exceptional commitment to education and mentorship has profoundly influenced countless professionals the field of laboratory medicine.
The award ceremony, celebrating the exceptional contributions and achievements of Toffaletti and other 2024 awardees, will take place during the 44th NACCCA Annual Banquet on July 31st, 2024, as part of the 2024 ADLM Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois.
Other NACCCA 2024 awards include the Lifetime Achievement Award, Women in Lab Medicine Award, Outstanding Service Award, and Innovation Award. NACCCA will also recognize the recipient of this year’s Clinical Mass Spectrometry Research Grant and five travel grant awardees.
Toffaletti has been an important member of Duke Pathology’s faculty for 45 years. In November, 2021, he published the third edition of his book on blood gas and critical care testing, titled Blood Gases and Critical Care Testing: Physiology, Clinical Interpretations, and Laboratory Applications, 3rd edition (Academic Press (Elsevier); ISBN: 978-0-323-89971-0). Over the past three years, he has chaired the committee developing the third edition of the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) C46 document, “Blood Gas and pH Analysis and Related Measurements; Approved Guideline.”
He has worked in the Duke University Health System Clinical Laboratories since 1979, where he is now director of the Blood Gas Laboratory, the Clinical Pediatric Laboratory, and several outpatient laboratories. He is also the chief of Clinical Chemistry at the Durham VA Medical Center. His research interests include blood gases, ionized calcium, magnesium, lactate (sepsis), kidney function tests (creatinine, cystatin C, eGFR), and viscoelastic testing (ROTEM, TEG).