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Joe El-Khoury, PhD, DABCC, FACB

Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine
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Additional Titles

Director, Clinical Chemistry, Laboratory Medicine

Director, Clinical Chemistry Fellowship Program, Laboratory Medicine

About

Titles

Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine

Director, Clinical Chemistry, Laboratory Medicine; Director, Clinical Chemistry Fellowship Program, Laboratory Medicine

Biography

Dr. Joe El-Khoury is Director of the Clinical Chemistry Laboratory and the Clinical Chemistry Fellowship Program at Yale New Haven Health and Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. El-Khoury is board certified by the American Board of Clinical Chemistry and a fellow of the AACC Academy. His research interests include indicators for monitoring clinical laboratory performance, investigating biomarkers of acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease (in collaboration with the Clinical and Translational Research Accelerator) and development of new mass spectrometry-based methods for the measurement of markers in biological fluids.

Appointments

Other Departments & Organizations

Education & Training

Postdoctoral Fellowship
Cleveland Clinic (2014)
PhD
Cleveland State Univ (2012)
BS
American University of Beirut (2008)

Research

Overview

Creatinine has known limitations as a biomarker for the evaluation of kidney function and kidney injury. Over the years, improvements in the eGFR equations slightly improved the performance of this marker, however these equations do not account for many non-GFR factors that affect creatinine. An important analogy to remember is that the light-bulb was not invented by trying to improve the candle. Hence, my goal has been to evaluate other existing markers for kidney function and bring them forward into the clinical field. Symmetric dimethylarginine (SDMA) is an emerging marker of kidney function that does not suffer from the same limitations that impact creatinine (such as muscle mass). My group’s recent publication evaluated the performance of SDMA against all existing markers of kidney function in a small population of healthy and CKD adult patients and showed that SDMA is superior to creatinine. This work is crucial for improvement in diagnosis of patients with CKD worldwide. We are currently working on the development of a high-throughput clinical assay for SDMA to enable its adoption in clinical laboratories.

Mass spectrometry has historically been limited to research laboratories, but the advent of soft ionization techniques such as electrospray ionization (ESI) and matrix assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) in the late 1980s, for which the inventers were jointly awarded the 2002 Nobel prize in Chemistry, rendered liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) an indispensable tool for analyses of small and macro-molecules in biological fluids. Recent improvements in sensitivity and affordability have encouraged the adoption of this technology for routine applications in the clinical laboratory. Initially, clinical labs focused on its utilisation on drugs of abuse confirmation, newborn screening, and steroid analysis. Today, clinical applications of mass spectrometry are being used in almost all areas of laboratory medicine, including microbiology, anatomic pathology, genetic disorders and pharmacogenetics, immunology, endocrinology and toxicology. My goal is to adopt this technology for our patients here and to develop non-existent assays.

In a recent report, researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore made headlines when they estimated that medical error is the third leading cause of death in the US. While patient safety remains a struggle in many areas of healthcare, laboratory medicine has been a leader in reducing error, with an estimated total error rate of 0.33%, the lowest in diagnostic medicine. Major advancements in automation and analytical instrumentation have helped reduce laboratory-associated errors over the last decade, but with pre-analytical errors currently accounting for up to 75% of all mistakes, laboratory medicine professionals must keep expanding their focus to what is happening outside of the lab. My goal is to raise awareness regarding this issue and to develop quality indicators to help monitor and detect pre-analytical errors.

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

Chemistry Techniques, Analytical; Chromatography; Clinical Chemistry Tests; Clinical Laboratory Techniques; Mass Spectrometry; Pathology, Clinical

Research at a Glance

Yale Co-Authors

Frequent collaborators of Joe El-Khoury's published research.

Publications

2024

Academic Achievements & Community Involvement

  • activity

    Clinical Biochemistry

  • activity

    Clinica Chimica Acta

  • activity

    Neuroscience

  • activity

    The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine

  • activity

    Clinical Chemistry

Clinical Care

Overview

Clinical Specialties

Laboratory Medicine

Fact Sheets

Get In Touch

Contacts

Academic Office Number
Office Fax Number
Mailing Address

Laboratory Medicine

20 York St

New Haven, CT 06510

United States