26Sep / 2016

Trusted Sources

Zach Weinersmith’s Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal reminds us that the public at large believes in the results of science based on their trust in scientists and, quite often, those that communicate the science.

The comic also shows how hazardous it can be to abuse that trust. This is why efforts to hold the institutions through which we do science accountable – like Retraction Watch, Rep. Speier’s HR6161, SAFE, critiquing of the publish-or-perish system, p-hacking, journal profiteering, and embargo abuse – are vital. It needs to be clear in public forums that we take that trust seriously and are more committed to protecting the integrity of the practice of science than to protecting individuals who violate that trust to maintain an illusion.

Filed under: Follies of the Human Condition Tagged: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, science, Scientist, Zach Weinersmith

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15Oct / 2015

Lab sciences grad program brought me from the yogurt factory to public health

by Joe Shea, MS, research assistant, Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health

My career as a laboratory scientist started in a yogurt factory. Yes, you read that correctly. And no, it was definitely not your typical lab experience. Instead of putting on a lab coat each day, I would change from my street clothes into freshly cleaned white pants, a button-down shirt, steel-toe boots and a hairnet. I’d begin my day walking through large rooms crowded with industrial steel pipes carrying yogurt in every direction, a site I initially found intimidating. I spent my time measuring the pH, fat content, protein content and bacterial contamination of milk, heavy cream and yogurt. The skills I gained as an undergraduate biology student at Siena College were being applied to quality assurance and ensuring that our products were safe for human consumption.

It was a great job, but I had the urge to move into something I would find more meaningful.

Lab sciences grad program brought me from the yogurt factory to public health | www.APHLblog.org During a visit to my alma mater, I heard about a seminar for students who were interested in public health graduate programs. On a whim I decided to go. At the seminar I learned about the Wadsworth Center’s (New York’s state public health laboratory) Master of Science in Laboratory Sciences (MLS) program, which at the time was only in its first year of existence. The MLS program combines coursework and laboratory rotations in fields ranging from biomonitoring, clinical chemistry and genetics to infectious disease and immunology, while also providing courses in laboratory management. Shortly after, I completed my application and was accepted into the MLS class of 2015 – the second class in the history of the program.

The highlight of the program was my capstone project, an eight-month project in the lab of my choosing. I chose to rotate through the Mycobacteriology Laboratory, and became fascinated with the amount of testing it takes to diagnose and confirm cases of tuberculosis (TB), and to perform drug susceptibility testing on each of those confirmed samples. I decided to focus on utilizing whole genome sequencing (WGS) to identify Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of TB, and detect mutations associated with drug resistance in clinical isolates.

Drug resistant strains of TB represent a global health concern, as there are fewer treatment options and a higher likelihood of poor outcomes. Conventional drug susceptibility testing can take eight weeks or longer in some cases, which means that patients may receive ineffective treatment until these results are available. Currently, several different tests are needed to assess drug resistance; WGS, however, could be used to detect these potential mutations while also identifying the M. tuberculosis species and strain type. WGS would take far less time and provide more useful and detailed information than current methods and could decrease the time it takes for tuberculosis patients to receive appropriate treatments.

Having the opportunity to work alongside public health laboratory scientists at the New York State Department of Health’s Wadsworth Center was an invaluable experience. I believe in the importance of this work, and I loved having the chance to contribute to the groundbreaking work being done at the Wadsworth Center.

Lab sciences grad program brought me from the yogurt factory to public health | www.APHLblog.org

I recently graduated from the MLS program and am continuing to work in the Mycobacteriology Laboratory. I’ll be focusing on using WGS to identify and detect TB in clinical specimens (rather than pure isolates) which is challenging due to the presence of other sources of DNA in the sample. This position will also enable me to contribute to other ongoing projects in the lab using WGS, including the study of other pathogenic bacteria such as Legionella pneumophila.

Sometimes I think about that last-minute decision to attend the seminar at Siena College where I learned about this great program; it changed the course of my career by exposing me to a whole world of laboratory science that I had never considered.

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29Jul / 2015

Moving from academia to public health: Did I make the right choice?

By Lixia Liu, PhD, MP (ASCP), D(ABMM), deputy director, Indiana Department of Health Laboratories

Lixia Liu is a member of APHL’s Emerging Leaders Program (Cohort 6). The group developed an educational website called That’s Sick! to introduce students and young scientists to the exciting world of public health laboratory careers.
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In 1996 I completed my PhD in molecular biology and bacterial genetics, and later received postdoctoral training on bacterial pathogenesis. Among my peers, becoming a professor in an academic institution was the ultimate career goal; non-academic professions were considered to be less competitive. While I knew that this was the perception, I never gave it much thought as I later transitioned from academia to public health… That is, until I ran into an old acquaintance at the American Society of Microbiology (ASM) annual meeting.

She was a fellow student who worked at the same lab where I did my postdoctoral training. By that time, I had been away from academia and working in a public health laboratory for three years. We met up later that day to update each other on our recent endeavors. During our conversation, she paused for a moment and then asked with a sympathetic look on her face, “You are now working in a public health laboratory, not staying in academia?”

In the following days, I couldn’t erase that look from my mind. I began to question my decision and wondered if I made the wrong move in choosing public health laboratory science as my career. I began to think back about how I first stepped onto this career path.

After my postdoctoral training, I continued basic research in a new academic lab conducting a study on virulence-related genetic markers. I was also involved in method development for molecular diagnosis and a molecular epidemiological study of infections of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. During this study, we found bacterial strains from two CF patients – one from the East coast and another from the West coast – with the same genetic fingerprints, which linked these two CF centers together. The transmission from one patient to the other occurred when one patient visited a camp attended by the other. Seeing how this bacterial strain moved and infected these patients caught my attention. This discovery was my first true exposure to the field of public health. I was intrigued.

Three years later, my husband was relocated for work so we moved from Michigan to Indiana. With my newfound interest in mind, I extended my job search to include public health. I came across a listing for a job that included molecular method development and molecular finger printing; it was a contractor position at the Indiana State Department of Health Laboratories. I pursued the opportunity and started my trial-run at the public health laboratory.

Although the method development and molecular epidemiological study of CF patients in the previous lab bridged the gap between academia and public health for me, the culture shock was still intense.

While academic research dives down deep to understand the fundamentals of a basic scientific mechanism (a vertical look at science), public health spans across disciplines to look for wide-reaching answers to real-life questions (a horizontal look at science).

In the public health lab, we seek answers to questions like: How severe is the flu season? Is a particular food product the cause of an outbreak or is it still safe for consumers? Is the drinking water safe to drink? To me, the most striking aspect of a public health laboratory is the impact generated by the test results. In clinical care, an individual patient’s sample may reveal the cause of their illness, their infection status or the reason that treatment has failed. In public health, aggregated results from multiple patients can reveal a trend, the health status of an entire community, a common link among infections or even the cause of an outbreak.

This trial-run introduced me to the field of public health laboratory science where I have stayed for 11 years because it is so fulfilling. I am now the deputy director of the Indiana State Department of Health Laboratories. One of my proudest moments was being a part of the team that detected MERS-CoV in Indiana, the first case in the US. While every situation isn’t as newsworthy, everything we do promotes public health and that is why I am glad to be here.

So while that question, “You are now working in a public health laboratory, not staying in academia?,” has come up again with friends, particularly among my former PhD classmates and postdocs, it doesn’t bother me anymore. If asked to choose again, I would still pursue this career path. I am proud of my choice and would encourage other scientists to consider this rewarding field.

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11Jun / 2015

Dear Dr. Hunt: This female scientist has something to say. And it isn’t that she loves you.

By Linette Granen, MT(ASCP)DLM, director, Marketing & Membership, APHL

After reading the comments made by Tim Hunt, the biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2001 for his work on cell division, I was appalled! His comments about his “trouble with girls” (his words) in laboratories made me look back over my many years in research, academia, public health and clinical laboratories and remember the prejudice and tactless comments I experienced firsthand.

Early in my career, there was my male lab supervisor who, upon seeing me bent over looking for something in a fridge, commented that my jumpsuit was “really attractive.” He clearly wasn’t looking at the jumpsuit!

Dear Dr. Hunt: This female scientist has something to say | www.APHLblog.org Later, as my family and I were moving to a new city and I was considering several job offers, I asked a male pathologist for his input. He said, “You need to stay home and be a mommy!”

Then there was the time a male company rep tried to sell me a part for a piece of equipment and said, “Being a woman, you can’t understand how it works!” Needless to say, he didn’t get that sale and he never showed up to my university laboratory again. I didn’t stand for that type of treatment.

In my opinion, the most offensive discrimination is when girls are young, vulnerable and easily influenced by someone who should be encouraging them to pursue their interest in science. I’ve seen many girls experience discrimination, including my own daughter. She is both creative and analytical at the same time (both hemispheres of her brain fire all at once), and was in the gifted program in grade school. During a parent-teacher conference, her beloved and highly respected middle school math teacher (a man) told my husband and me, “Lauren doesn’t need to be in this gifted math class—she cannot keep up with the boys.” We were horrified, and even more so when we discovered that he told our daughter that directly. When she aced his final exam, his comment was, “You couldn’t have done that on your own.” Surprisingly (or not), he was removed from his gifted teaching job almost immediately after someone complained. (You know who that was, don’t you?)

Fortunately, my daughter knew her strengths and disregarded that teacher’s discriminatory comments. She went through high school, tested out of 22 course hours in college (including math), was a math tutor for the football team (all men, of course), received a degree in mathematics and ultimately a master’s in biostatistics. She is very successful in her science career, despite not being able to “keep up with the boys.”

So, Dr. Hunt, after all these years in science, I can truly say that no bouts of crying or lab love affairs (really?) have gotten in my way. I am still a scientist and so are both of my daughters. Despite the few people like you who think we can’t handle science because of our gender, we can and we have – and we hope to inspire the next generation to do the same.

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21Apr / 2014

Scientist? Actress? Or President?

April 20-26 is Laboratory Professionals Week! This year APHL is focusing on environmental health and the laboratorians who work to detect the presence of contaminants in both people and in the environment. This post is part of a series.

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By Laurie Peterson-Wright, Chemistry Program Manager, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

Who would have known that the 1973 fifth grade class of Beadle Elementary in Yankton, South Dakota could predict the future? As a classroom exercise, we all had to vote on what we would each be when we grew up. I received 10 votes to become an actress, 10 votes to become a scientist and even one vote to be the first woman president!

My parents were adamant that I finish every project, class, book, craft or book I started. This instilled within me a commitment to never quit and a sense of wonderment at where the next bit of knowledge and hard work would take me. My passion for any type of science began at a young age. I would stay glued to my microscope or my telescope at night. I wanted to learn everything about how humans and the universe operated. I had so many educational ambitions – teaching, mathematician, certified public accountant, physicist, medical doctor, astronaut (and let us not forget Hollywood Star) – but after many years in school, I reeled my focus in to chemistry, mathematics and business administration.

My first position was in cancer research, but I was shortly introduced to environmental chemistry and project management. I was intrigued by how chemical and radiological pollutants interacted with the environment and what we could do to mitigate exposure, especially for sensitive populations. I spent 15 years in the environmental remediation/waste management field and then accepted a position with the State of Colorado Chemistry Program in 2001. Immediately I embraced public health and how these same contaminants in the environment could be so easily transported. I was fascinated by how they interacted with the human body including sensitive human and animal endocrine systems.

This world is an amazing place! By continuing to focus on my passion in public health, I will only increase my knowledge of how all sensitive systems are interconnected. Live gently, and also boldly, my fellow scientists.

Oh, and by the way….I still act…and PS don’t tell my parents I never finished Moby Dick.

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31May / 2013

STEM Flame War!

Image courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory

It’s not often that you find a number of online comments on a scientific journal’s website. It’s even rarer to discover something that is bordering on a scientist flame war (complete with requests for evidence!). Colin Macilwain asserts in a recent editorial in Nature that he thinks programs to encourage STEM education are a spectacular waste of money. Now this particular stance is already going to incite some backlash. He says that all the overlapping programs are wasting money and that making more scientists will just depress wages by flooding the market.

What ensues in the comments section is a debate over whether increasing scientific literacy for all is important in today’s society and whether there is truly a shortage of qualified scientists to fill open positions. I was excited to see so many scientists engaged in discussion of STEM policy and with well articulated opinions on the subject. Not everyone agrees on the ultimate goal of STEM education, whether it be to raise the level of science literacy universally or to increase the number of students who go on to careers in science. As it is, there is a glut of biologists who are struggling to find employment, though I think fields like computer science may not be experiencing the same problems. I personally, don’t agree with Macilwain, but I think more scientists should be thinking about science and society and participating in the discussion. Science literacy for all!

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Category Archives: Scientist

Trusted Sources

Lab sciences grad program brought me from the yogurt factory to public health

Moving from academia to public health: Did I make the right choice?

Dear Dr. Hunt: This female scientist has something to say. And it isn’t that she loves you.

Scientist? Actress? Or President?

April 20-26 is Laboratory Professionals Week! This year APHL is focusing on environmental health and the laboratorians who work to detect the presence of contaminants in both people and in the environment. This post is part of a series.

STEM Flame War!

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