01Sep / 2020

September is Public Health Laboratory Appreciation Month

Hi! I’m Flat Labby! I had hoped to meet you earlier this year, but the past few months have been hectic for everyone. I know it’s been challenging for all of you personally and professionally. So I would like to officially introduce Public Health Laboratory Appreciation Month and say thank you for your hard work and determination!

This month is a celebration of public health laboratory heroes. Check out some of the fun activities below to celebrate APHL member labs and colleagues, and learn more about me, Flat Labby!

Don’t forget to share the fun on social media with #ThanksPHLabs and #FlatLabby:

Where did Flat Labby come from? Read my story!

Flat Labby Adventures
Do you want to share your scientific adventures with a new best friend? Look no further, I’m right here! Let’s get out of the lab and show everyone what you’re up to. Take me on a hike or to a fun event and photograph me in that environment. Have a comment or message to share? Let me help you!

Learn how to Flat Labby and print out these cool cut-outs:

Coloring Pages
Need to relax and get your creative brain moving? Print out one of these fun coloring pages. Grab some markers and colored pencils and bring me to life! Express your enthusiasm for public health labs, or just use me to brag about your art skills on social media!

Labby Letters
Send a letter of gratitude to your staff, coworkers, family and friends. It’s easy with these fun fillable letters. Just type in your sentiments of gratitude, save the file and print or email them to your favorite lab employees.

Celebration Ideas

Create a VidHug Video
VidHug makes it easy to compile video messages from many people – a great way to say thanks from everyone! Create a video for your lab staff, or have your staff make one for another lab. Include me, your Flat Labby, in the VidHug action! Don’t forget to share your videos on social media using #ThanksPHLabs and #FlatLabby.
Public Health Laboratory Appreciation Kudoboard
We’ve created a Public Health Laboratory Appreciation Kudoboard webpage where everyone can share their appreciation for public health labs and their tireless staff! Post your messages of gratitude and good vibes for everyone to see!
Customize Flat Labby’s T-Shirt
Did you notice that one of my t-shirts is blank? The Flat Labby Cool cut-out page has a blank t-shirt, so you can create a funky, one-of-a-kind logo or design! Get everyone involved and have a contest for the best shirt!
Get Social (At a Distance)
Comment and post on social media about your favorite lab staff. Don’t forget to include me, Flat Labby, with your most recent at-home “science project” or with your lab crew at the bench, and use #ThanksPHLabs and #FlatLabby when you post!

Story Time
Check out these inspiring stories about laboratory scientists:

Ep. 22: Life as a public health lab scientist testing for COVID-19 (Lab Culture, APHL’s podcast)
Ep. 18: Alaska state virology lab — Freezing temps, wild animals, and extremely dedicated staff (Lab Culture, APHL’s podcast)
Delaware Public Health Laboratory: At a Crossroads (Lab Matters)
“That Gem of a Lab”: County of San Luis Obispo Public Health Laboratory (Lab Matters)
Aiming Upward in Marion County, Indiana (Lab Matters)
Waterwise: The Nebraska Public Health Environmental Laboratory (Lab Matters)
Humboldt County Public Health Lab was ready for ricin thanks to LRN (APHL Blog)
Improving newborn sickle cell screening in Africa: ‘We can affect change there just like we did in the US’ (APHL Blog)
Public health labs aren’t just on the frontlines of vaccine-preventable outbreaks. They’re often the only line. (APHL Blog)

Celebrate the Essential Work of Public Health Labs
Did you know that September is also home of several other related public health awareness celebrations? What a great time to recognize your crew’s essential contributions!

National Preparedness Month #BeReady
National Newborn Screening Month #2020NBS
Food Safety Education Month #FSEM
Get Ready Day (September 15) #GetReadyDay
National Health IT Week (Date TBD) #NHITweek
World Rabies Day (September 28) #WorldRabiesDay

The post September is Public Health Laboratory Appreciation Month appeared first on APHL Lab Blog.

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29Jul / 2020

Lab Culture Ep. 22: Life as a public health lab scientist testing for COVID-19

Matt Sinn and Jessica Bauer pose with the Missouri state flag

Jessica Bauer and Matt Sinn are scientists at the Missouri State Public Health Laboratory. On this episode, they shared their experiences performing COVID-19 testing, working long hours seven days a week, supporting their staff while trying not to burnout themselves. As they describe in this conversation, the experience has been nothing they ever could have expected.

Jessica Bauer, molecular unit chief
Matthew Sinn, molecular laboratory manager

Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts:

Links:

Missouri State Public Health Laboratory
APHL: Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic
COVID-19 posts on APHLblog.org

The post Lab Culture Ep. 22: Life as a public health lab scientist testing for COVID-19 appeared first on APHL Lab Blog.

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01Jul / 2020

The Story Collider Presents: APHL – call for story pitches

Sadly, in its inaugural year, APHL’s ID Lab Con had to be canceled. Well, most of it… APHL planned an exciting after hours event with The Story Collider and we’re joining them in bringing this event to you online!

On August 27 (time TBD), The Story Collider and APHL will host a very special edition of their online live show. They will choose three people to share true, personal stories related to the COVID response in some way, showcasing the work and lives of the APHL community.

What is The Story Collider?

Science and public health shape everyone’s life—and that means everyone has science and public health stories to tell. The Story Collider produces dozens of live shows all over the country, and recently has moved to an exciting online format. Some of the stories are heartbreaking, others are hilarious, but they are all true and all very personal. Join us on August 27, 2020 (time TBD) for a very special edition of The Story Collider, featuring three true, personal stories about science from APHL members!

What makes a good story for this event?

Stories are powerful. Whether hilarious or heartbreaking, subversive or soothing, it matters who takes the stage and what stories are told. Whatever your position in the lab, we want to hear yours! The story must have an arc. This means that you, the storyteller, change from the beginning to the end of the story. This change can be big or small— as momentous as becoming a parent or as small as learning to ask for help—but it has to be there in order for the audience to feel that the story is going somewhere.

Is this similar to a conference presentation?

The Story Collider is not the place for lectures: it is about lived experiences. And the format does not include slides or props. Though this is a science storytelling show, the goal is not to educate the audience, but to build an emotional connection between science and the public. So while each story must contain a significant science element, please use only as much science as needed for the audience to understand and follow your story.

I have an idea, but it needs some help!

All you need at this point is the seed of an idea for your story. It can be about almost anything – being pulled away from your usual work to support COVID testing, a surprising realization, long days at the lab, supporting a team, misadventure, love, loss and more, but it must be about YOU. True, personal stories have the most power when they are about the person telling them. Let the audience in on your thoughts and feelings so they can go on the journey with you.

If you are selected for the show, keep in mind that there is a small time commitment involved. Every storyteller works one on one with a Story Collider producer to brainstorm and shape their story, and then they typically hold a group rehearsal one to three days before the show.

The Story Collider event will be recorded. If you would like to submit a pitch, please be sure to get any necessary permissions from your supervisor and public information officer.

Send your pitches!

Pitches are typically about two paragraphs long. Send your pitch to stories@storycollider.org with “APHL Story Idea” in the subject line. The deadline for pitches is July 10, 2020.

Need some inspiration?

The Story Collider catalog of playlists organized by topics: https://www.storycollider.org/archive-by-category
More about submissions: https://www.storycollider.org/submissions
Browse The Story Collider podcast archive: https://www.storycollider.org/podcasts

The post The Story Collider Presents: APHL – call for story pitches appeared first on APHL Lab Blog.

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26Jun / 2020

APHL Celebrates the 2020 Award Winners

The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) is pleased to announce the winners of its annual awards for outstanding achievements in laboratory science, creative approaches to solving today’s public health challenges and exemplary support of laboratories serving the public’s health. Awardees were honored on June 25, 2020 during a virtual ceremony. A recording of the awards ceremony is available on APHL’s Facebook page. Congratulations to all award winners!

Celebrate the 2020 APHL Award Winners from APHL on Vimeo.

The following awards were presented:

Lifetime Achievement Award – This award recognizes individuals who have established a history of distinguished service to APHL, made significant contributions to the advancement of public health laboratory science or practice, exhibited leadership in the field of public health and/or positively influenced public health policy on a national or global level. This is not a retirement award, but a true Lifetime Achievement Award.

Judith C. Lovchik, Indiana State Department of Health
John (Jack) M. DeBoy (posthumous), formerly Maryland State Department of Health Laboratories Administration

Gold Standard Award – The award is given to an APHL member who makes or has made significant contributions to the technical advancement of public health laboratory science and/or practice.

Noel V. Stanton, Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene

Silver Award – This award honors a laboratorian with 10 to 15 years of service in a Governmental public health laboratory (either Public Health or Environmental/Agricultural laboratory). The honoree will be recognized as a leader both within their home laboratory as well as external to their laboratory.

Michael J. Perry, New York State Department of Health, Wadsworth Center
Robert Nickla, Oregon State Public Health Laboratory

On the Front Line Award – This award honors an individual or laboratory outside of the APHL membership who makes significant contributions to the advancement of public health laboratory science and/or practice.

Ronald S. Klein, Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO), Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation

Emerging Leader Award – This award honors a laboratorian whose leadership has been instrumental in one or more advances in laboratory science, practice, management, policy or education within five to 10 years of working at a publicly funded laboratory that conducts testing of public health significance.

Marty K. Soehnlen, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau of Laboratories

Leadership in Biosafety and Biosecurity Award – This award honors a laboratorian with over 10 years of related service in the field of biosafety and biosecurity in a state and/or local public health laboratory. The honoree will be recognized as a leader both within their home laboratory as well as external to their laboratory (for example, by serving in a leadership role in committees/taskforces at the national level).

Michael J. Perry, New York State Department of Health, Wadsworth Center

Champion of the Public Health Laboratory Award – This award recognizes federal, state and local elected officials or executive branch employees who have recognized the importance of state and local governmental laboratories that perform testing of public health significance either through support of legislation or federal agency decisions.

CDC National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) E-cigarette/Vaping-Associated Lung Injury (EVALI) Laboratory Task Force

Presidential Award – The APHL Presidential Award was selected by Dr. Grace Kubin during her Presidential year (2019-2020) for the significant contributions that were made to the association’s work to promote policies that strengthen public health laboratories.

Wendi Kuhnert-Tallman, CDC’s Infectious Disease National Centers

Healthiest Laboratory Award – This award is given to an APHL member laboratory that is committed to safety, environmental process, environmental policy and employee health and wellness.

District of Columbia (DC) Department of Forensic Services Public Health Laboratory

Thomas E. Maxson Education, Training and Workforce Development Award – This award was established in August of 1998 in memory of Dr. Maxson, and honors an APHL member who is a public health or clinical laboratory practitioner, trainer or educator who has made significant contributions to public health laboratory practice by creating, delivering or developing continuing education opportunities, programs, policies or practices for the laboratory community.

Robert Nickla, Oregon State Public Health Laboratory
Karen Stiles, Nebraska Public Health Laboratory

The post APHL Celebrates the 2020 Award Winners appeared first on APHL Lab Blog.

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26Jun / 2020

APHL Celebrates the 2020 Award Winners

Celebrate the 2020 APHL Award Winners from APHL on Vimeo.

The following awards were presented:

Judith C. Lovchik, Indiana State Department of Health
John (Jack) M. DeBoy (posthumous), formerly Maryland State Department of Health Laboratories Administration

Gold Standard Award – The award is given to an APHL member who makes or has made significant contributions to the technical advancement of public health laboratory science and/or practice.

Noel V. Stanton, Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene

Michael J. Perry, New York State Department of Health, Wadsworth Center
Robert Nickla, Oregon State Public Health Laboratory

Ronald S. Klein, Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO), Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation

Marty K. Soehnlen, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau of Laboratories

Michael J. Perry, New York State Department of Health, Wadsworth Center

CDC National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) E-cigarette/Vaping-Associated Lung Injury (EVALI) Laboratory Task Force

Wendi Kuhnert-Tallman, CDC’s Infectious Disease National Centers

Healthiest Laboratory Award – This award is given to an APHL member laboratory that is committed to safety, environmental process, environmental policy and employee health and wellness.

District of Columbia (DC) Department of Forensic Services Public Health Laboratory

Robert Nickla, Oregon State Public Health Laboratory
Karen Stiles, Nebraska Public Health Laboratory

The post APHL Celebrates the 2020 Award Winners appeared first on APHL Lab Blog.

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04Jun / 2018

Reporting from the Exhibit Hall: Day 2 of the APHL Annual Meeting

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.

You can listen to our show via the player embedded below or on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. Please be sure to subscribe to Lab Culture so you never miss an episode.

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

The post Reporting from the Exhibit Hall: Day 2 of the APHL Annual Meeting appeared first on APHL Lab Blog.

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04Jun / 2018

Reporting from the Exhibit Hall: Day 2 of the APHL Annual Meeting

You can listen to our show via the player embedded below or on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. Please be sure to subscribe to Lab Culture so you never miss an episode.

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

The post Reporting from the Exhibit Hall: Day 2 of the APHL Annual Meeting appeared first on APHL Lab Blog.

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12Jan / 2015

Newborn Screening: This Tiny Test is a Big Job That’s Always Improving

By Scott J. Becker, executive director, APHL

Newborn screening saves or improves lives – 12,000 each year, to be specific. Every year over four million babies born in the United States have their heels pricked during the first days of life to check for certain devastating conditions that are not otherwise apparent at birth. The small number of babies who test positive for those conditions may suffer serious and irreversible damage without early detection. Newborn screening enables health professionals to identify and, in most cases, treat those babies allowing them to grow up to live healthy, normal lives. The newborn screening program is one of our nation’s greatest public health achievements, but that doesn’t mean it is perfect.

Last year a series in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel drew public attention to some of the areas in which the newborn screening program needed to improve. That story and a recent editorial in USA Today focused on the amount of time between specimen collection, testing and reporting of results. Timeliness is critical for the newborn screening program to be a success, and we acknowledge the valuable contribution these articles have made.

Continual quality improvements – including timeliness – have been and continue to be a priority for public health laboratories, the agencies responsible for identifying and reporting positive newborn screening test results. In fact, APHL recognized the efforts of many state programs during the 2014 Newborn Screening and Genetic Testing Symposium. Many state newborn screening programs have conducted hospital site visits; conducted targeted outreach to lagging performers and publicly recognized top performers; provided hospitals and other specimen submitters with guidelines for collection of specimens; reinforced regulatory requirements; and provided training for use of overnight courier shipping software. Program changes like these in states around the country have significantly improved specimen transit times.

APHL and its members have collaborated with the Department of Health and Human Services Discretionary Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children to develop updated recommendations on timeliness guidelines. These activities occur in tandem with a series of other quality improvement activities including proficiency testing, evaluation of emerging technologies and implementation of quality practices pertaining to screening, confirmation and results reporting.

I am proud of the work state newborn screening programs are doing every day. We do not take the public health laboratories’ role in this life-saving program lightly, and I thank the staff for their dedication to improving it. Our focus is on the babies – it always has been and always will be.

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23Oct / 2014

Biomonitoring and the Public Health Laboratory: Everything You Want to Know

Biomonitoring and the Public Health Laboratory: Everything You Want to Know | www.aphlblog.org

Simply stated, biomonitoring allows public health practitioners to understand whether environmental contaminants are being absorbed into people’s bodies. Given improvements in technology; the capabilities and expertise that now exist in public health laboratories; and the increasing public demand for more information about chemical exposures, biomonitoring is poised to become an integral component of public health practice.

APHL proudly recognizes all of the great work public health laboratories are doing to advance the practice of biomonitoring. We have made it a priority to share these biomonitoring achievements through a variety of channels.

Just in case you missed these great resources and stories, they are here:

Free Webinars

Blog posts and Lab Matters Articles

Integrating Biomonitoring with CDC’s National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program (Blog Post)
Returning Biomonitoring Test Results in an Easy-to-Understand Format (Blog Post)
Measuring Household Dust for Potentially Dangerous Chemicals (Blog Post)
Biomonitoring and a Cancer Cluster: Delaware Investigates (Lab Matters article)
Chemical Exposure Study in NY is Innovative and Promising (Blog Post)
Biomonitoring Project in Native American Community Helps Protect and Inform (Blog Post)

Fact Sheets

Biomonitoring: Analysis of Human Exposure to Chemicals (Factsheet)
Biomonitoring: An Integral Component of Public Health Practice (Factsheet)
Examples of Biomonitoring in Public Health (Factsheet)

Other resources

Biomonitoring Toolkit
Biomonitoring Capabilities List (site for health practitioners and academics)

Tell us what you think: EH@aphl.org.

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23Apr / 2014

An Outdoor Enthusiast Finds a Career in Environmental Health

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 Henry Leibovitz, Ph.D., Chief, Environmental Sciences, RI State Health Laboratories

Growing up along the south shore of Long Island’s eastern end, my interests covered everything aquatic. My every waking hour was spent on the water fishing, boating, clam digging, and exploring. My every dream was driven by the excitement of the sea. It was an exceptional lifestyle for an adolescent who cared more about adventure than academics. Nonetheless, my future was destined to involve higher education and research by the vision of my father who was a veterinarian, a research scientist and veterinary college professor.

While earning my BS in Biology, a close priority became serving as president of the outing club, an adventure wilderness group of students spending weekends in the Adirondack Mountains. Opportunity also came to me in campus residence life as I worked as a resident advisor and then assistant dormitory director. The training and experiences included interpersonal communication, conflict resolution, supervision and management as well as life lessons that would play a major role later in my laboratory career. Upon graduation, my passion had become feeding the world through aquaculture.

After marrying my college sweetheart I enrolled in an MS degree program of Fisheries and Allied Aquaculture at Auburn University. Waking up before dawn to measure dissolved oxygen levels in the catfish ponds and constantly worrying about the threat of O2 depletion, and losing thousands of pounds of fish was not going to be my way of life. The laboratory environment became much more interesting. My major professor introduced me to the nutritional biochemistry of fish diets and feeds. Replacing fish meal with soybean meal in catfish diets was the subject of my research and thesis. “We are what we eat!” With fish I learned that feed analysis is critical to understanding how diet affected the growth, health and production of farmed fish. I earned my MS realizing that laboratory scientists have a significant role in feeding the world just as the farmers do.

I landed a research associate position on a project at Louisiana State University funded by a NIH grant to develop laboratory grade bullfrogs (Rana catesbiana) in place of the wild caught overly-stressed specimens for neurophysiologic research. My role was to improve the diets for larval stages of tadpoles! In the laboratory we bred and raised several bullfrog line generations. During metamorphosis however tadpoles frequently developed skeletal deformities including scoliosis. My research focused on dietary and environmental factors that were causally suspected. While the research was very interesting, I became convinced that it would be more rewarding to lead the research activities and that earning a Ph.D. was necessary to continue my career.

During my Ph.D. program at the University of Rhode Island I worked as a research associate for the Department of Food Science and Nutrition. My duties as instrumentation specialist involved me in a variety of the department’s research activities. While pursuing my doctoral dissertation developing microencapsulated diets for larval marine fish, I learned the importance of elucidating environmental components such as pesticides, PCBs and metals in natural (plankton and brine shrimp) and formulated diets (various fish meals, fish oils, grains and other ingredients) for growth and survival during fragile larval stages.

Learning to apply the tools of analytical chemistry to the analysis of environmental components in feed and living organisms, I forged my career path into environmental laboratory analysis. After earning a Ph.D., I worked for an environmental analysis laboratory starting as supervisor and eventually as laboratory director before the company moved to South America. We provided laboratory services to national clients including the US Department of Defense, EPA and many environmental engineering contractors. We analyzed sample matrices included air, water, soil, biota and food. Professionally I was so rewarded by the teaching, research and managerial aspects of my job that I didn’t expect to find in the commercial sector. Teaching newly hired graduates, improving methodology and instrument performance, and sharing a vision of the critical paths to achieving objectives kept me interested in the work. Client centric laboratory services were important to me.

In 2004 I was hired by the RI State Health Laboratories (SHL) as Quality Assurance Officer in the Environmental Laboratory Sciences section. In 2007 I became Chief Environmental Laboratory Scientist of the section that includes the chemical and microbiological analysis of drinking water, food, air, dairy, shell fish, recreational water and ambient river samples for the health and environmental program partners we serve. I point to the dedication of staff, peers and colleagues for the successful SHL services provided to our state health and environmental program and industrial partners.

As a public servant I have come to understand that the existence of our laboratories depends on the successful outcomes of our partners in public health and environmental protection.

Outside of work I enjoy spending time with my family and I still pursue the adventure of the great outdoors all seasons of the year.

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Category Archives: members

September is Public Health Laboratory Appreciation Month

Lab Culture Ep. 22: Life as a public health lab scientist testing for COVID-19

The Story Collider Presents: APHL – call for story pitches

APHL Celebrates the 2020 Award Winners

APHL Celebrates the 2020 Award Winners

Reporting from the Exhibit Hall: Day 2 of the APHL Annual Meeting

Reporting from the Exhibit Hall: Day 2 of the APHL Annual Meeting

Newborn Screening: This Tiny Test is a Big Job That’s Always Improving

Biomonitoring and the Public Health Laboratory: Everything You Want to Know

An Outdoor Enthusiast Finds a Career in Environmental Health

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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