17
October 2017

LGC scientists appointed to Chinese expert committee

Dr. Derek Craston (Government Chemist and Chief Scientific Officer, LGC) and Dr. Jens Boertz (chemist, LGC Standards, Germany) have been appointed to the Chinese National Drug Reference Standard Committee of the National Institutes for Food and Drug Control (NIFDC) in Beijing, People´s Republic of China for a five year term.

During the inauguration ceremony at NIFDC facilities in the South of China´s capital both received a certificate of appointment from NIFDC´s Director-General Dr. Bo Li.   

The Committee is responsible for the quaIity control of chemical drugs, Chinese traditional medicines, biologics, food, cosmetics and medical devices nationwide. Nearly all the biologics, including vaccines, and blood products in China were released by the institute.

Dr. Derek Craston joined LGC in 1991 and has carried out a variety of research and development roles relating to new methods of analysis. Prior to joining LGC, Dr. Craston spent two years at the University of Texas, Austin (USA), undertaking postdoctoral research into electrochemical applications of scanning probe microscopy, and three years at AEA Technology, Harwell (UK), working on applied electrochemistry including sensors, fuel cells, batteries and ‘cold’ fusion. He has a degree in Chemistry from the University of St Andrews and a PhD from Imperial College, London, for research into enzyme electrochemistry. Dr. Craston became the Government Chemist in June 2008. 

Dr. Jens Boertz is Senior Product Manager Pharma at LGC Standards in Wesel, Germany. He has a diploma in Chemistry and a PhD from Duisburg-Essen University for the investigation of bismuth metabolism using mass spectrometric techniques. Before Dr. Boertz joined LGC he was laboratory manager at Fraunhofer Society, Research Fellow at European Commission´s Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM, Geel, Belgium) and Senior Product Manager Analytical Reagents at Sigma-Aldrich (Buchs SG, Switzerland). Moreover, he was founding member of the reference materials group at the German standardization body (DIN, Berlin) and German delegate at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO, Geneva) for reference material related topics, e.g. the conversion of ISO Guide 34 into ISO 17034.