"I was very pleasantly surprised to receive this award, as I made the presentation for educational purposes with no real intention of winning"
A cheque for GBP100 has been presented to David Ducroq, principal biochemist at the Quality Laboratories of the Wales External Quality Assurance Scheme (Weqas), by Bayer Diagnostics, which sponsored the 2004 Association of Clinical Biochemists (ACB) Wales Junior Members Award.
The award was made in respect of a presentation made by Ducroq at a recent ACB Wales regional meeting on the performance of cortisol assays in the UK, comparing results obtained from various commercial immunoassay analysers with those obtained using the 'gold standard' reference method.
"I was very pleasantly surprised to receive this award, as I made the presentation for educational purposes with no real intention of winning", says Ducroq, whose responsibilities include running the reference laboratory at Weqas.
"We aim to assign target values to all of our materials, and also have a duty to provide reference values wherever possible under the terms of the In Vitro Diagnostics (IVD) Directive.
"Manufacturers have to validate their assays in accordance with strict guidelines, and then it's up to us to monitor their performance over time.
"The cortisol project was part of that on-going work".
Of the presentations made at the ACB Wales meeting, Ducroq's was judged to be the best in terms of content, originality and delivery.
He subsequently received his prize from Bayer's regional sales representative, Mark Weaver, in the Weqas laboratory at Cardiff.
