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All newborns in New York State are screened for 52 disorders including all 37 on the Recommended Uniform Screening Panel (RUSP).  Because of the immense impact newborn screening has on public health, a committee of professionals continually evaluates conditions for addition to the RUSP. Pilot studies such as ScreenPlus can help determine if a new test for a disorder provides results that are beneficial to the health of the newborn and, therefore, the disorder should be added to the panel.

Before COVID most of us probably never thought about how the organisms that cause disease inherit their genetic material and how that impacts their ability to be “successful” pathogens.  Drs. Todd Gray and Keith Derbyshire at the Wadsworth Center have been thinking about this for a long time. 

Over 10 people per hour, nearly 300 per day, every day lose their lives to drugs nationwide. 

Some of the work of the cores, such as media preparation, is based on techniques that go back over a hundred years, even to the beginnings of what became the Wadsworth Center. Other Wadsworth Center cores perform high-quality antigen production, sophisticated image analysis and manipulation, and sequencing and bioinformatic analysis that may be completed in hours to days rather than weeks or months, often providing comprehensive assessment of a full bacterial genome.

Established by NIH in 2019, the goal of HHEAR is to promote the characterization of the totality of human environmental exposures called the "exposome". The exposome includes chemical, physical, and biological stressors as well as lifestyle and social environments that affect a person.

Read about Dr. Janet Lynch's journey in the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) article, "Laboratory Call Proves Strong for One Fellow."

Wadsworth Center scientists Dr. Paul Masters and Dr. Kirsten St. George recently joined Commissioner McDonald and Acting Executive Deputy Commissioner Morne on the New York Public Health Now podcast. The podcast discusses timely topics with front line public health specialists.

At this year’s annual meeting of the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL), two Wadsworth Center scientists were honored.   Elizabeth Nazarian, MT (ASCP) received the Silver Award for her contributions including her work to establish the Northeast Antimicrobial Resistance Laboratory at Wadsworth Center, her role in developing over 50 laboratory developed tests and authoring 40 papers.

Rana Rahmat, a member of the Public Health Preparedness and Response Team from the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL), expected her visit to Wadsworth Center to help her directly observe, better understand, and fully experience the important work happening across all our laboratories.

Department Celebrates the Many Contributions of the Wadsworth Center

Lyme disease presents an ever-increasing burden to the public and the public health system, with an estimated 476,000 cases per year nationwide (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). In addition, many patients continue to suffer pain, fatigue, and brain fog long after being treated for their initial infection.

Read the New York State Department of Health Press Release.

Read the New York State Department of Health Press Release

Wadsworth Center scientists Dr. Kimberlee Musser, Dr. Marie Claire Rowlinson, and Tanya Halse were among the featured highlights from the National Conference on Laboratory Aspects of Tuberculosis hosted by the Association of Public Health Laboratories in the latest edition of its quarterly magazine, Lab Matters.

Wadsworth Center’s Tanya Halse was the 2022 recipient of the Ed Desmond Award from the National Tuberculosis Controllers Association (NTCA).  This award honors exemplary service, dedication, or leadership to a tuberculosis (TB) laboratory professional and it’s easy to see why Tanya was nominated by Dr. Margaret Oxtoby and colleagues in the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) Bureau of TB Control.

Did you know that you only need a few drops of dried blood from a pricked finger to test for COVID-19 antibodies? Indeed, not only does a drop of blood contain a multitude of different antibodies to viruses and other microbes, but Wadsworth Center scientists are able to measure an array of different types of antibodies and estimate how well they are able to fight off an infection.  Such technologies represent the interaction of clinical testing and research investigation that occur at the Center every day of the week.

Read how Wadsworth Center scientists adapted the tools they already had to increase COVID surveillance capacity.

Wadsworth Center is committed to the continuing education of the next generation of public health laboratorians. In partnership with the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Wadsworth Center has offered full-time, working fellowships to graduate and post-graduate scientists for more than 25 years.

See Governor Hochul's April 21, 2022 press release.

Tuberculosis­­­ - The Tortoise Would you be surprised to know that tuberculosis (TB) was the leading infectious disease killer in the world in 2019? Estimates of deaths attributed to TB were second only to COVID-19 in 2020 (roughly 1.5 million versus 1.8 million reported deaths, respectively). In the ongoing race to be the microbe responsible for the largest number of deaths across the planet, “hares” like HIV and SARS-CoV-2 explode onto the scene and appear to leave everyone else in the dust.