After the congress is before the trade fair: Less than a month after the end of DKLM 2025 in Leipzig, MEDICA will start on November 17, 2025 in Düsseldorf. MedLabPortal wanted to know from the representative of the DGKL Presidium, Jan Wolter, whether the professional society will be involved there again this year – and what the current state of laboratory medicine in Germany is.

Mr. Wolter, MedLabPortal was the ideal partner of the MEDICA LABMED FORUM 2024 as an information portal of the German Society for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (DGKL). What does it look like this year?

Wolter: The DGKL will once again be present at MEDICA this year and will be dedicated to central topics that we will also cover on the MedLabPortal.

In the field of laboratory medicine, the DGKL, publisher of the MedLabPortal, is indispensable as a scientific-medical professional society. Who else do you want to reach with the cooperation with Medica I outlined earlier?

Wolter: As a professional society, we are organising our own large, successful flagship event, the German Congress for Laboratory Medicine, which will take place next year on 1 and 2 October in Hamburg, as well as other events. Through Medica, we also reach people who might not come to Leipzig or Hamburg specifically to spend a whole day or two dealing with laboratory medicine. We can see that this strategy is working from the fact that both our own events and the rows at Medica are well filled.

In October, you presented the MedLab Abwards in Leipzig. What is behind the idea of focusing the DGKL’s prices under this roof?

Wolter: Laboratory medicine is an exciting, highly innovative industry that is indispensable for medical care. Unfortunately, hardly anyone notices it. This is because the patient has hardly any direct points of contact with it. For an MRI, you go to the radiologist and lie down in the device. However, your family doctor will take the blood sample and then send it away. He presents the results to you. We need to put laboratory medicine more in the spotlight and make the successes and innovations better known – and we can also celebrate them. The MedLabAwards are the stage for this. Of course, we also want to promote young talent and get them excited about the subject.

While we’re on the subject of young talent: In the USA, scientific and medical institutions and universities are currently under massive pressure. What impact does this have on German laboratory medicine?

Wolter: For laboratory medicine, this can of course be an opportunity to poach researchers from the USA. However, the framework conditions must be created here for this. The universities must be better equipped and, above all, financed for this. Bureaucracy is also a problem.

Even if you jeopardize your next entry into the USA as a vacationer, we would like to have that in more detail…

Wolter: I also really enjoy vacationing in Canada. But to your question: Science is under massive pressure in the USA, and in some cases is even seen as an enemy. We have to position ourselves here as a clear antithesis, where science is free. Unfortunately, however, I also see tendencies in this country that facts are being given less and less importance.

And in your view, Medica could therefore be a platform on which the DGKL becomes the voice of free science with the MedLabPortal?

Wolter: This should already be the case now! In any case, I can advocate that scientists from laboratory medicine and clinical chemistry recognize the MedLabPortal as an opportunity for themselves to disseminate their topics and research results.

As you know, we like to provoke: In Germany, there is a lot of talk, even more announcements, but in the end little is implemented. Does this also apply to laboratory medicine?

Wolter: Especially when it comes to topics such as digitization and automation, where there is a lot of talk in Germany but ultimately not much happens, we think of the health card, laboratory medicine acts at the speed of light in comparison. The DGKL is also continuing to drive these topics forward and is digitizing and automating processes within the professional society.

Since we are talking about AI and digitalization. They have recruited very high-calibre and ingenious experts from the circle of the so-called Young Laboratory of the DGKL to drive forward the digitization of the professional society. That’s commendable – but do you have any suggestions in terms of cybersecurity? The threat situation is global, and the pressure is not only coming from the USA…

Wolter: We have repeatedly drawn attention to the need to pay more attention to the issue and have exchanged views on this with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, among others. In order to be able to finance more security, I had proposed the Cybercent. Each sample is “remunerated” with a minimal additional contribution. The money goes into a pot from which security measures are promoted or financed.

You yourself are among the best-known security experts in the republic and were the managing director of an association whose cooperation partners included institutions such as the BKA, BND, BfV and BSI. How should laboratory medicine, which is after all regarded as a critical infrastructure, prepare itself for the future in terms of security?

Wolter: Thank you for the flowers, but you overestimate my level of fame. But the fact is that laboratory medicine is undoubtedly the focus of attention as a critical infrastructure. I don’t even want to go into which scenarios are conceivable here and which actors can all come onto the scene. How did a Minister of the Interior once say? “The answer could worry the population.” Above all, however, I do not want to provide anyone with ideas or suggestions. Laboratory medicine is therefore well advised to secure itself at a military level. Software and hardware play an important role in this, of course, but a special focus should be placed on the employees. They must be sensitized. For many, what is not only possible today, but also common modus operandi, still sounds like science fiction or James Bond.

Our last question, because Federal Minister of Health Nina Warken will probably read this interview: What would you like to tell her?

Wolter: Politicians tend to only deal with an issue when it becomes a problem, when something no longer works. Or if someone comes up with the idea that it could help solve another problem. Therefore, laboratory medicine can be an important part of the solution to many problems. If the framework conditions do not improve, there is a danger that she herself will become a problem case. If she wants to know more about this, she should talk to independent practitioners and scientists in laboratory medicine. She finds it with us.

Mr. Wolter, thank you very much for your time.

the questions were asked by Marita Vollborn and Vlad Georgescu

Further information:

MEDICA – Forums & Conferences at a Glance

Editor: X-Press Journalistenbüro GbR

Gender Notice. The personal designations used in this text always refer equally to female, male and diverse persons. Double/triple naming and gendered designations are used for better readability. ected.