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Dr. Nicholas Mantis, of Wadsworth Center's Division of Infectious Diseases, was awarded a five-year, $9 million contract by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to study human antibody responses to the Lyme disease pathogen, Borrelia burgdorferi.  

​Current antibiotics work by interfering with bacterial growth, which is a fine game plan… until it stops working. More and more, bacteria are finding ways around this approach, resulting in a huge antibiotic resistance problem. Dr. Jon Paczkowski may just have come up with a new defensive strategy and recently received a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate.

As we’ve seen repeatedly during the pandemic, it isn’t always easy to get our hands on everything we need, hmmm, cue the toilet paper, especially new things. This reality translates to addressing patients who have COVID today. By using tools we already have in labs across the country, we can capitalize on the technology, instruments and the know how to use them by using them in new ways.

Dr. St. George is quoted in the feature article beginning on page 5 and our own Infectious Disease Fellow Nora Cleary is featured on pg 19. Nora has been selected for the Edith Hsiung Memorial prize for her abstract/presentation on Hep A whole genome sequencing.  This is one of the two top travel awards from the American Society for Microbiology for a student, fellow, or technologist, presenting their work at the annual, international Clinical Virology Symposium, to be held this year in West Palm Beach.

Having spent a lot of time in our homes recently, most of us are probably contemplating a dream renovation. If that project requires several professionals - plumbers, electricians, carpenters, etc., we might have second thoughts.

Read on page 26 of Association of Public Health Laboratories' Fall/Winter Lab Matters Issue about Wadsworth Center's Collaboration with CDC's Biodefense Research and Development Laboratory.

In 2019, cases of a mysterious illness related to vaping, formally referred to as “e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury” (EVALI), were identified across the United States.  A significant number of cases affected young New Yorkers.  In association with NY Regional Poison Control Centers and medical facilities from around the state, Wadsworth Center’s Laboratory of Organic Analytical Chemistry analyzed vape fluid samples from suspected cases for cannabinoids, pesticides, synthetic cannabinoids, opioids, illicit drugs, an

SARS-CoV-2, like all viruses, is constantly creating new variants through mutation of its RNA genome. Most mutations are of little or no consequence. However, every once in a while, a new mutation can increase transmissibility, increase disease severity, cause the virus to escape the body’s immune response, or do any combination of these.

The World Health Organization estimates that almost 4,000 people lose their lives to TB and close to 28,000 people contract TB every day.  Currently, 13 million people in the United States live with latent (hidden) TB infection.

The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) is pleased to announce the winners of its annual awards (page 32) for outstanding achievements in laboratory science, creative approaches t

Infections with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb),  the etiological agent of tuberculosis (TB) in humans, are difficult to eradicate with antibiotics: a 6-month long multidrug regimen is necessary for the treatment of TB.  The drug recalcitrance of TB infections has been associated with a specialized subpopulation of Mtb cells, that do not replicate or are very slow growing and whose metabolism is significantly decreased.

Wadsworth Center has long been committed to providing the next generation of public health professionals with the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities. More than 300 students have made Wadsworth Center their summer home over the course of nearly 30 years through the National Science Foundation-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program.

Wadsworth Center’s David Axelrod Institute, and all of Wadsworth Center for that matter, may be known to many as a place for research and education. But there’s a lot of clinical testing that goes on here too. You could even say the work performed here impacts every native New Yorker - from screening every baby born in the state, to testing for the measles, the flu, Legionella, Zika, C. auris, Ebola and much, much more. It all happens here.

This award recognizes those who effectively advance ethical science through significant, innovative contributions to the 3Rs of animal research - Refinement, Replacement and Reduction. Up to four such awards are presented annually – one each from North America, Europe, the Pacific Rim, and countries outside these three geographic areas.

Wadsworth Center Welcomes Dr. Jon Paczkowski Dr. Paczkowski received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2014 and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Bassler Laboratory at Princeton University prior to joining the Wadsworth Center. Here he uses the model organism Pseudomonas aeruginosa to study microbial signal transduction and cell-cell communication.

New questions and answers added September 27, 2019! The Wadsworth Center and Health Research Inc. are requesting applications from up to three investigators/inventors/companies to work closely with the Wadsworth Center to develop and optimize a point-of-care device that can detect the presence of Candida auris from a skin or nasal swab.

The Summer 2019 issue of the Association of Public Health Laboratories' (APHL) publication Lab Matters features an article recognizing the work of the Wadsworth Center's Antibiotic Resistance Lab Network (AR Lab Network) - Northeast Regional Lab.  

Wadsworth Center Director Dr. Jill Taylor welcomed to the ceremony honored guests and speakers including Dr. Howard Zucker, New York State Health Commissioner; H.E. Ambassador István Pásztor, Consul General, New York; and Dr. Jonathan Jakus, Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology Montefiore Nyack Hospital and US Representative of the Semmelweis Memorial Committee.

Virology Laboratory staff member Greg Farrell is the inaugural recipient of the National Respiratory and Enteric Virus Surveillance System (NREVSS) Lifetime Achievement Award. Unsolicited. Inaugural. Lifetime Achievement. Weighty words.

The application period is closed. Check back Spring 2020.   About the Wadsworth Center Fellowship Program The mission of the Wadsworth Center Fellowship Program is to provide scientists with broad experience in laboratory science and research in infectious disease, genetics, environmental health or translational medicine. Fellows will gain broad experience at one of the nation’s premier public health laboratories, renowned for developing and utilizing high complexity testing using advanced technologies and state of the art equipment.