In July 2023, we changed our name from AACC (short for the American Association for Clinical Chemistry) to the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (ADLM). The following page was written prior to this rebranding and contains mentions of the association’s old name. It may contain other out-of-date information as well.
2024 Academy Award for Outstanding Contributions to Clinical Chemistry in a Selected Area of Research
Learn more about this award here.
Amitava Dasgupta, PhD, DABCC, FADLM, received his PhD in chemistry from Stanford University and completed his fellowship in Clinical Chemistry from the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine at Seattle. He is board certified in both Toxicology and Clinical Chemistry by the American Board of Clinical Chemistry and a member of ADLM since 1987. He is also a fellow of the Academy. Currently, he is a tenured Full Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center and Director of Clinical Laboratories at the University of Kansas Hospital. In his early career he focused on clinical utility of free (unbound) drug monitoring and received the Young Investigator Award from AACC (now ADLM). Later he continued his research in the field of both therapeutic drug monitoring and toxicology. In 2009, he received the Irvine Sunshine Award from the International Association of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology (IATDMCT) for his research on how to identify adulterated urine specimens submitted for workplace drug testing. He also received the Outstanding Contributions in Education Award from AACC in 2010. He has published 261 scientific papers, 20 invited review articles, several editorials, and over 100 abstracts. He has written 15 books, and edited or co-edited another 11 books. He is on the Editorial Board of five journals including Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, Clinica Chimica Acta, Journal of Clinical Laboratory Analysis, and Annals of Clinical and Laboratory Science.
2010 Outstanding Contributions in Education
Amitava Dasgupta PhD, DABCC, FACB, Dr. Dasgupta is professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston. He is also the director of the clinical chemistry and toxicology laboratory of Memorial-Hermann Laboratory Services at the major clinical teaching hospital of the University of Texas. Dr. Dasgupta is active in the education of both medical students and pathology residents, and has received the clinical pathology teacher of the year award. He has shared authorship of more than 100 papers with a resident, medical student, or graduate student. Dr. Dasgupta has successfully sponsored 35 residents who won the Young Investigator Award from the Academy of Clinical Laboratory Physicians and Scientists. Active in AACC's educational mission, he has been invited to speak at every AACC annual meeting since 1995, and has won an Outstanding Speaker Award nine times. Dr. Dasgupta’s major focus of research is in the field of toxicology and therapeutic drug monitoring, with recent attention to the toxicity of herbal remedies. He has published 181 scientific papers, written three books, and edited another four books. He is on the editorial board of the American Journal of Clinical Pathology, Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, Clinica Chimica Acta, and Journal of Clinical Laboratory Analysis. He received the Irving Sunshine Award from the International Association for Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology for outstanding contributions in clinical toxicology, the AACC Young Investigator Award, and the AACC International Travel Fellowship.
2003 International Travel Fellowship Award
Amitava Dasgupta PhD, DABCC, FACB, is professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. He is also the director of the clinical chemistry and toxicology laboratories at Memorial-Hermann Hospital, the medical school’s teaching hospital. His research interest is in the field of therapeutic drug monitoring. He has published many papers on digoxin-like immunoreactive factors (DLIF), increased free (unbound) drug concentrations in uremia, and drug–drug interactions that lead to unexpected concentrations of free drugs. More recently, his interest has focused on the study of complementary and alternative medicines and their effects on abnormal laboratory test results.
Dr. Dasgupta has published 139 papers in peer-reviewed journals along with more than 100 abstracts, invited reviews, and book chapters. He has presented roundtables at every AACC annual meeting since 1995 and presented mini-workshops at several meetings. He has actively promoted the practice of therapeutic drug monitoring in his native India. Since 1998, he has delivered talks at several medical colleges, including the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. He was an invited speaker at the 9th Asian Pacific Congress in Clinical Biochemistry in New Delhi. He plans more lecture tours this year and in years to come to promote the practice of clinical chemistry and toxicology in India.
1993 The George F. Grannis Award For Excellence In Research And Scientific Publication
Amitava Dasgupta, PhD, FACB was honored with AACC’s 1993 George F. Grannis Award for Excellence in Research and Scientific Publication.
1991Outstanding Scientific Achievements by a Young Investigator
Amitava Dasgupta will receive the 16th AACC Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement by a Young Investigator. The Award is sponsored by Boehringer Mannheim Diagnostics.
Dr. Dasgupta was born in Calcutta, India, in 1958 and received his B.S. in chemistry with honors from Calcutta University in 1978. In 1981, he received an M.S. in analytical chemistry from the University of Georgia. He worked with Professor Carl Djerassi at Stanford University, where he completed his Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1986. His dissertation focused on identification and structural characterization of unusual molecular species of phospholipids from marine organisms. He completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in clinical chemistry at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Since 1988, he has been Assistant Professor of Pathology and Assistant Director of Clinical Chemistry at the University of Chicago. The major focus of Dr. Dasgupta’s research includes the structural characterization of unusual molecular species of lipids by fast atom bombardment-mass spectrometry, studies on lipid peroxidation, isolation and characterization of digoxinlike immunoreactive substances (DLIS), and evaluation of the advantages of monitoring free drug concentrations. Recently, Dr. Dasgupta has studied deficiencies of essential fatty acids in the serum of hemodialysis patients. He has also demonstrated increased concentrations of circulating products of lipid peroxidation in renal-transplant recipients and patients on maintenance hemodialysis.
Dr. Dasgupta became interested in DLIS while completing postdoctoral work with Professor Margaret Kenny at the University of Washington. He characterized those compounds by using a fast atom bombardment-mass spectrometric technique, and has published several CLINICAL CHEMISTRY, Vol. 37, No. 7, 1991 1317 papers on this subject. He has continued this work at the University of Chicago and recently discovered that interferences from DLIS in a digoxin assay can be eliminated by monitoring free digoxin concentration. The method takes advantage of the very high protein binding of DLIS, in contrast to only 25% protein binding of digoxin at 25 #{17H6}eC. Also conducts research on the advantages of free drug monitoring and has demonstrated drug interactions between phenytoin and antibiotics (ceftriaxone nafcillin and bactrim).
Dr. Dasgupta already has 47 scientific publications to his credit and an additional five under review. In 1990, he received the Young Clinical Chemist Research Award from the Chicago chapter of the AACC. In 1987, he received a Young Investigator Award from the Academy of Clinical Laboratory Physicians and Scientists (ACLPS), which in 1988 awarded him the Young Investigator Award with Distinction for his structural characterization of DLIS. He also received the AACC Travel Award in 1988. He has been a member of the ADLM since 1987, and will be a Diplomate of the American Board of Clinical Chemistry in July 1991. He is certified as both a clinical chemist and toxicological chemist by the NRCC. He continues to teach resident physicians, striving to inspire their interest in research; in 1991, two resident physicians he sponsored for research received Young Investigator Awards from ACLPS.
Dr. Dasgupta enjoys traveling and writing short stories.