Dr. Rifai received his B.S. from the University of Damascus and his PhD in clinical chemistry from the Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, VA. He spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina Memorial Hospital, Chapel Hill, in the Department of Hospital Laboratories. In 1988, Dr. Rifai joined the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the Children's Hospital National Medical Center in Washington, DC, as an assistant director of the clinical chemistry laboratory. He has also held a joint appointment in the departments of Pathology and Child Health and Development at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr. Rifai's research interests in analytical methodologies include the refinement of methods for using specific proteins as diagnostic tools and the development of chromatographic methods for therapeutic drug monitoring. Dr. Rifai has authored or co-authored more than 30 scientific publications. He has been a member of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry since 1981.