Lab Culture

Latest Episodes:

What a Day! Day 3 of the APHL Annual Meeting Jun 05, 2018

Show notes

Day 3 of the APHL Annual Meeting was a big one! We had several captivating sessions including this year's Katherine Kelley Distinguished Lecturer, Maryn McKenna, renowned journalist and author. Listen to today's episode to hear a few attendees share what they took away from the day.

Reporting from the Exhibit Hall: Day 2 of the APHL Annual Meeting Jun 04, 2018

Show notes

A huge component of any APHL Annual Meeting is the exhibit hall. This year we were joined by 68 exhibitors, all of whom were sharing new and interesting products, services and technologies with meeting attendees. In today's episode, we chat with representatives from Roche, Bio-Rad Laboratories and Hologic.

Learn more about APHL's corporate membership and other opportunities.

Hello, Pasadena! Day 1 of the APHL Annual Meeting Jun 03, 2018

Show notes

We are in sunny Pasadena, California for the 2018 APHL Annual Meeting! Here is a little look at what we did on the first day. Stay tuned for updates every day through June 5.

2018 APHL Annual Meeting and Twelfth Government Environmental Laboratory Conference

Join the conversation using #APHL on:

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Bitten by the public health bug: How I found my lab niche May 24, 2018

Show notes

The people who work in public health laboratories make a difference in your community daily. In this third episode, members of the Emerging Leader Program cohort 10 sit down with their peers to hear how their public health laboratory careers have made an impact.

ELP cohort 10 members featured in this episode:

Dana White has been working in the public health lab for 16 years and is now the state training coordinator at the Mississippi Public Health Lab.
Dr.Ona Adair has been working in the public health lab for nine years and is now the Chemistry Division director at the South Carolina Public Health Laboratory.
Dr. Harmeet Kaur worked in the Placer County Public Health Laboratory for four years and is currently a LabAspire Assistant Director Fellow.
Kristen Durie has been working in the public health lab for six years and is now the chemistry quality assurance manager at the New York State Food Laboratory.
Matt Bradke has been working in the public health lab for 16 years and is now the chemical terrorism laboratory supervisor at the Arkansas Public Health Laboratory.

Interviewees:

Degina Booker has been working in the public health lab for 40 years and is now the administrative services director for the Mississippi Public Health Lab.
Dr. Burton Wilcke, Jr., now retired, has worked in public health laboratories for over 35 years in Vermont, Michigan and California. Dr. Wilcke remains active in the public health laboratory community as a member of both the APHL Workforce Development Committee and the Global Health Committee.
Dr. Musau WaKabongo, now retired, was the Public Health Laboratory Director at the Placer County Public Health Laboratory and has worked in several public health laboratories in California for 13 years.
Dr. Maria Ishida has been working in public health for 11 years and is now the director of the New York State Food Laboratory.

Are you thinking about a career in a public health laboratory?

What if there were no public health labs? May 17, 2018

Show notes

Maybe the saying is true: you don't know what you had until it is gone. For the families in this episode, the absence of public health laboratories turned their worlds upside down and negatively impacted both the present and future. These families represent us all and highlight the vulnerabilities that would exist if there were no public health laboratories working continuously to keep our communities and populations safe.

This is the second episode in the series produced by members of the Emerging Leader Program cohort 10.

Emerging Infectious Disease Response:

APHL's Infectious Disease Program

Laboratory Response Network (LRN)

Interviewer: Kate Wainwright, PhD, D(ABMM), HCLD (ABB), MPH, MSN, RN, deputy director, Public Health Protection and Laboratory Services, Indiana State Department of Health

Expert: Peter Shult, PhD, director, Communicable Disease Division; associate director, Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Newborn Screening:

APHL's Newborn Screening Program

NewSTEPs

Baby's First Test

Interviewer: Josh Rowland, MBA, MT(ASCP), manager, Training and Workforce Development, Association of Public Health Laboratories

Expert: Miriam Schachter, PhD, research scientist 3, New Jersey Department of Health, Newborn Screening Laboratory

Foodborne Illness:

APHL's Food Safety Program

5 Things You Didn't Know (but Need to Know) About Listeria

Interviewer: Samir Patel, PhD, FCCM, (D)ABMM, clinical microbiologist, Public Health Ontario; Toronto, Canada

Expert: Vanessa Allen, MD, MPH, medical microbiologist, chief of microbiology, Public Health Ontario; Toronto, Canada

Narrator: Erin Bowles, B.S., MT(ASCP), Wisconsin Clinical Laboratory Network coordinator and co-biosafety officer, Communicable Disease Division, Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Contributor: Emily Travanty, PhD, scientific director, Laboratory Services Division, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

Special thanks to Jim Hermanson at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene for his help in recording this episode.

Public health labs do that?! Apr 25, 2018

Show notes

Public health laboratories do a great deal of work that impacts the daily lives of everyone in America. Do you know exactly how much they're doing? The first episode produced by members of the Emerging Leader Program cohort 10 looks at some of the work performed by public health lab scientists.

(*indicates ELP cohort 10 member)

Water Quality Testing

Interviewer: *Amanda Hughes, program manager of ambient air quality monitoring, State Hygienic Lab at the University of Iowa

Experts: Michael Schueller, assistant director of operations, State Hygienic Lab at the University of Iowa Nancy Hall, program manager, Environmental Microbiology, State Hygienic Lab at the University of Iowa

Water quality testing at the State Hygienic Lab at the University of Iowa

Alcohol Testing

Interviewer: *Gitika Panicker, microbiologist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Expert: Laura Bailey, director, Office of Alcohol Testing, Arkansas State Public Health Laboratory

Alcohol testing at the Arkansas State Public Health Laboratory

Influenza Testing

Interviewer: *Shondra Johnson, laboratory information management system administrator, Missouri State Public Health Laboratory

Expert: Jessica Bauer, molecular unit manager, Missouri State Public Health Laboratory

Seasonal influenza testing at the Missouri State Public Health Laboratory

Bioterrorism

Interviewer: Avi Singh, food lab lead microbiologist, Washington State Public Health Laboratory

Expert: *Denny Russell, bioterrorism coordinator, Washington State Public Health Laboratory

Foodborne Outbreak Linked to Flour

Interviewer: *Rebecca Lindsey, Whole Genome Sequence Project lead, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Experts:

Heather A. Carleton, bioinformatics team lead, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Samuel J. Crowe, National Outbreak Reporting System team lead, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

E. coli outbreak linked to flour (CDC)

Shiga Toxin–Producing E. coli Infections Associated with Flour

What is the APHL Emerging Leader Program? Apr 23, 2018

Show notes

What is the Emerging Leader Program (ELP)? APHL staff, Pandora Ray and Kajari Shah, share how the ELP got its start and how it has progressed. This year's ELP cohort is producing three episodes for Lab Culture that will be released over the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

APHL Emerging Leader Program

Leaders for a TB Free World Mar 23, 2018

Show notes

Every year on March 24, APHL recognizes World TB Day, a day to focus on the valuable work of our members and partners. While tuberculosis is often considered a disease of the past, it is resurging and presenting significant new public health challenges including drug resistance. This World TB Day, we are sharing an insightful conversation between two TB laboratory leaders: Dr. Marie-Claire Rowlinson, assistant laboratory director, Bureau of Public Health Laboratories, Florida Department of Health and Dr. Beverly Metchock, team lead, TB Reference Laboratory, CDC Division of Tuberculosis Elimination.

Links

APHL TB program

World TB Day Resources

National Tuberculosis Controllers Association

The Tenacity of Tuberculosis: MDR-TB (blog post)

APHL's International Team Meeting Dec 21, 2017

Show notes

In November, Scott Becker, APHL's executive director, traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa for the second APHL International Team Meeting. While he was there, he sat down with five members of the APHL international team to discuss their work and what led them to pursue a career in laboratory science.

The APHL International Team Meeting allows for US-based APHL leadership and global health program staff and consultants working in-country to discuss organizational operations and key programmatic successes and challenges. In most cases, this is the only time during the year that these individuals have an opportunity to meet face-to-face. Participants from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Guinea, Sierra Leone and APHL's US headquarters were all in attendance.

Interviews include:

Levi Vere, Laboratory Quality Monitoring Manager, APHL Zimbabwe
Shanette Nixon, Global Health Consultant, APHL
Esther Vitto, Laboratory Program Support, APHL Sierra Leone
Mohamed Fofanah, Associate Specialist, Administration and Finance, APHL Sierra Leone
Rufus Nyaga, LIS Technical Consultant and Project Manager, APHL Kenya

APHL's Global Health Program

Mudslides in Sierra Leone

Zimbawe After Mugabe

What is the Biosafety Peer Network? Oct 24, 2017

Show notes

The Biosafety Peer Network (aka the Visiting Biosafety Official Program) links US local, state, and territorial public health laboratories with US-affiliated Pacific Island laboratories to facilitate mentoring and information sharing among biosafety officials and officers. The exchange is intended to foster a collaborative community, advance biosafety and biosecurity in laboratories, and ultimately improve public health laboratory biosafety and biosecurity across the US. So what exactly does the Biosafety Peer Network do? Three members of this network -- Rebecca Sciulli (Hawaii), Paul Fox (Hawaii) and Anne Marie Santos (Guam) sat down for a conversation about their work.

Photo: Paul Fox (left) and Rebecca Sciulli (center) giving Anne Marie Santos (right) a tour of the Hawaii Laboratories Division facility to showcase their biosafety practices, as part of the Peer Network program.

Links

Biosafety Peer Network Program Application

Laboratory Biosafety & Biosecurity Resources

Biosafety & Biosecurity Training

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