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 National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry (NACB) and AACC Academy were also both rebranded to the Academy of Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine. The following page was written prior to this rebranding and contains mentions of the association’s old name, the Academy’s old name, NACB, and/or FACB (one of the old designations for members of the Academy). It may contain other out-of-date information as well.
2004 Outstanding Contributions to Clinical Chemistry
Matthew J. McQueen, MB ChB, PhD, FRCPC, FACB, has been a Professor in the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, McMaster University since 1987 and Director of the Hamilton Regional Laboratory Medicine Program and Chief of the Departments of Laboratory Medicine at Hamilton Health Sciences and St. Joseph’s Healthcare since 1998. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland and received his medical degree and doctorate from the University of Glasgow. He was recruited to Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia in 1974 and to McMaster University in 1976. In 1981 he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada and in 1984 a Founding Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Clinical Biochemistry.
Dr. McQueen’s early scientific work was in the measurement of enzymes and isoenzymes in heart and liver disease and in the relationship of serum cholinesterase phenotypes with the response to the muscle relaxant succinylcholine. As a physician and Director of the Lipid Research Clinic, his clinical focus has been on lipid disorders, primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease, and the investigation of statins, fibrates, and probucol in reducing disease risk. While continuing this work, he has expanded his clinical research laboratory to provide analytical support for the large epidemiologic studies and clinical trials from the Population Health Research Institute under the leadership of Dr. Salim Yusuf. The laboratory evaluates the role of lipids, inflammation, infection, hormones, and genes in multinational studies to identify clinical, nutritional, socioeconomic, and genetic factors underlying the development of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. With the investigators in these studies, he has established a bank of several hundred thousand well-characterized patient samples, stored in liquid nitrogen. With current growth rates, this will increase to 2–3 million in the next 5 years. The tissue bank is the basis of a proposal from clinical and science departments at McMaster University, Hamilton Health Sciences, and St. Joseph’s Healthcare to establish a high-throughput proteomics facility to investigate population proteomics. Funding for these research activities has come from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the pharmaceutical, clinical diagnostic and scientific equipment industries.
Dr. McQueen has served on the editorial boards of scientific journals and has been a reviewer for many clinical and scientific publications as well as for research grants. He has been an invited speaker in 45 countries and is an author of more than 140 scientific papers on enzymes, lipids, cardiovascular disease, laboratory management, ethics, and evidence-based laboratory medicine. He has held many educational responsibilities in the medical, residency, clinical chemistry, postdoctoral, and laboratory technology training programs in Hamilton.
Dr. McQueen received the AMES Award from the Canadian Society of Clinical Chemists in 1985; the D. J. Campbell Lectureship Award from the Alberta Society of Clinical Chemists in 1996; the Canadian Academy of Clinical Biochemistry Award and the Ontario Society of Clinical Chemists Award and Lectureship, both in 1998; and the Somogyi-Sendroy Award from the AACC Upstate New York Section in 2003, all for outstanding contributions and achievement in the field of clinical chemistry. The Hungarian Society of Clinical Pathology awarded him the Jendrassik Medal for scientific and professional achievement in 1998, and he received the AACC Transatlantic Lectureship Award at the 1999 meeting of the Association of Clinical Biochemists in Manchester, England. In 1998 he was a visiting scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He received a Visiting Lectureship from the Federation of South African Societies of Pathology in 2001 and the Travelling Lectureship of the Canadian Society of Clinical Chemists in 2003.
Dr. McQueen has held several offices in the Canadian Society of Clinical Chemists, including President from 1983 to 1985, and was Chair of the Board of the Canadian Academy of Clinical Biochemistry 1988–1990. His involvement with the IFCC began as a member of its scientific committee in 1982–1987, and he served as Treasurer in 1988–1990, Vice-President in 1991–1996, and President in 1997–1999.
He is married to Dr. Moira McQueen, a lawyer and moral theologian who teaches at the University of Toronto; they have five sons and two daughters. They share a love of music and travel, and he would like to turn his life-long interest in history into a more formal study of that subject.