Lab Culture

Are we already at the end of 2019?! While to many of us it felt like the year flew by, APHL staff, members and partners accomplished a LOT in an effort to protect the public's health. In this episode, Scott Becker, APHL's executive director, reviews some of the highlights of the year along with Gynene Sullivan, APHL's manager of communications, who is finalizing our Annual Report.

This year marks 20 years since the inception of the Laboratory Response Network (LRN). Founded by APHL, CDC and the FBI, the LRN exists to protect the public from biological and chemical threats. How did the LRN get its start? And how has it evolved over the past 20 years? This episode of Lab Culture features an interview with two public health laboratory scientists and LRN experts.

APHL has a long history of involvement in Sierra Leone where we’ve provided technical assistance to strengthen the nation’s laboratory system for over a decade. Following the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak, we were invited back to build laboratory response capability. We found there was a lot to be done. With the engagement completed earlier this year, APHL Executive Director Scott Becker and Manager of Global Health Sherrie Staley share insights from their experience, which include the value of a healthy ram

Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, author of What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City, joins us for an interview about the importance of storytelling in public health. Did Dr. Mona's successful use of narratives allow Flint's story to be as resilient as the people who lived it?

We started the day with awards ceremony and concluded with the member assembly, listening to many great speakers in between. For many, the highlight was the Dr. Katherine Kelley Distinguished Lecture delivered by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha. Dr. Mona is a pediatrician, scientist, researcher, activist and author of What the Eyes Don’t See. Her research and the work of her team exposed the deliberate effort to cover up the Flint water crisis and the lead poisoning of Flint, Michigan's children. 

It was another great day at the annual meeting in St. Louis! As the attendees interviewed on this episode will share, some of the highlights included Poster Speed Dating, learning about new technology from exhibitors and, of course, networking.  Follow #APHL on Twitter and Instagram for more updates!

We're in St. Louis for the 2019 APHL Annual Meeting! This episode is a round-up of all the excitement of the first day. It was fascinating and exhausting, just as the annual meeting should be. Follow #APHL on Twitter and Instagram for more updates!

Every area of our country is unique in ways that make public health laboratory work vary from one state or locality to another. But just as Alaska is different from the lower-48 states in most ways, their public health lab's work is too. Have you ever considered all the ways it might be different to work in the Alaska state lab in Fairbanks? This episode of Lab Culture reveals some of the many ways in which working in Alaska is unlike anywhere else.

In the spring of 2018 patients suffering from profuse bleeding swamped emergency rooms in Illinois and Wisconsin. The cause? Synthetic cannabinoids laced with rat poison.

What happens inside a public health lab when a health threat sends it into overdrive? Find out how the North Dakota lab met a surge in West Nile Virus in 2018 in this APHL in Action Lab Culture Extra.

Kevin Libuit went from the APHL-CDC Bioinformatics Fellowship to a contractor to working full-time as a bioinformatician at the Virginia state lab. First he talks about when he discovered bioinformatics as a field and how the fellowship propelled his career. Then Kevin takes the mic and interviews Dr. Denise Toney, director of the Virginia state laboratory, about the value and growing need for bioinformaticians in public health labs. 

For this PKU Awareness Day, we are sharing Kevin Alexander’s podcast, PKU Life Podcast with Kevin Alexander. We are so appreciative of Kevin’s willingness to both share with and listen to those in the newborn screening community. Kevin, thank you for your leadership, friendship and generosity!

Joanne Bartkus, APHL's board president and director of the Public Health Laboratory at the Minnesota Department of Health, sat down with Scott Becker, our executive director, and Gynene Sullivan, editor of Lab Matters magazine, to talk about priorities for the year. Their conversation ranged from informatics to health equity to... snuggling with a bat?!

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.

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.