Dr Alexander Haliassos, MD, PhD, EuSpLM 

62 y.o., born in Athens (Greece), married, 4 adult children  

Dr Alexander Haliassos is currently President and CEO of DIAMEDICA, a Greek reference laboratory specialized in Prenatal Diagnostics based in Athens since 2005. He also acts as Scientific Director of the Greek External Quality Assessment Scheme (ESEAP), a non-profit organization established by the Greek Ministry of Health as a spin-off of the Greek Society of Clinical Chemistry-Clinical biochemistry (GSCC-CB). 

He obtained his MD diploma at the medical School of the University of Athens (1985). After his military service as medical doctor at the Greek Air Force (1985-1987), he obtained in 1991 his thesis (PhD) at the school of Medicine, National University of Athens, Greece. He pursued his scientific education at the Faculty of Medicine, Claude Bernard University, Lyon I (FR) where he obtained a thesis (DEA) on electronics applied to the medical field, and in addition one in human genetics in 1985. He completed his curriculum in France as post-doctoral fellow (1987-1991) at the Institute of Molecular Biology, Paris-Descartes University.  

Dr Alexander Haliassos is registered as European Clinical Chemist (EurClinChem, now EurSpLM) since 2003. He fulfilled many responsibilities in teaching medical students at the National Research Foundation, Institute for Biological Research and Biotechnology, Athens (GR); in directing the core medical laboratory, including the Blood Bank of the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, the Athens Euroclinic and the Metropolitan Hospital at Athens (GR) and in participating in genetics research.  

At the national level, Dr Haliassos has held a number of professional representative roles in Greece including GSCC-CB Executive Board member (1996-2003), GSCC-CB Scientific Secretary (2005-2011), General Secretary (2012-2017) and from 2017 until today President of the Greek society. Since 2011, he is a founding Member of the Scientific and Educational Committee of the GSCC-CB and a founding Member of the Greek National Registration Committee for Clinical Chemistry. He represents ESEAP at EQALM (the European Organization for External Quality Assurance Providers in Laboratory Medicine). He is an elected member of HellasLab Executive Board, the Greek section of EuroLab. On behalf of the Greek Society, he strengthened partnerships with multilateral agencies to promote the added value of laboratory medicine as a key factor to improve public health. Since 2005 he is the Greek IFCC National Representative. 

At the international level, Dr Alexander Haliassos is the current Treasurer of IFCC (2021-2023) and re-elected for the next term (2024-2026). Within the federation, he served as member of the IFCC-WG on Standardization of Troponin I (WG-TNI) as well as member of the IFCC-Analytical Quality Committee (C-AQ). In 2014, he was appointed as Chair of the IFCC-Task Force on Proficiency Testing (TF-PT) that in 2017 evolved to the Committee on Proficiency Testing (C-PT), a multidisciplinary effort of IFCC in the analysis and the exploration of the Proficiency Testing and External Quality Control issues. 

He intensified its engagements with the IFCC conferences and congresses acting as the Greek leader for the organization of the 10th IFCC-General Conference, at Corfu in 2010 and as Member of the EuroMedLab Paris 2015 Congress Organizing Committee (COC). As the President of EuroMedalb Athens 2017, he demonstrated an extensive experience and expertise in management, finance and institutional partnerships within the IVD industry. Considering the number of exhibitors, the number of received abstracts, the high participation at the conference and according to the IFCC survey, the overall satisfaction of Delegates and Exhibitors, EuroMedLab Athens 2017 was a great scientific congress and a very successful financial event for IFCC.