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.

Wadsworth Center joins with the Association of Public Health Laboratories to celebrate Lab Week April 24-30, 2022. Follow the links to learn about the many ways public health laboratorians help to keep us safe every day - from environmental testing to infectious disease testing to newborn screening.

Please see New York State Department of Health Press Release More about COVID-19 Variant Data

Rachel Fay, Ph.D. candidate in Wadsworth Center’s Arbovirology Laboratory, under the mentorship of Dr. Alex Ciota, took first place in the University at Albany’s fourth annual Three Minute Thesis competition with her talk titled, “Increasing the resolution of vector-borne diseases and climate change”. The contest gives all graduate students across all fields at the University at Albany a chance to present their work. Listen to Rachel’s talk.

A culmination of work in Lyme arthritis in patients and in animal models, the review highlights the paradigm that infectious agents may trigger immune dysregulation and autoimmunity, leading to persistent post-infectious sequelae.Lyme arthritis: linking infection, inflammation and autoimmunity.Lochhead RB, Strle K, Arvikar SL, Weis JJ, Steere AC. Nat Rev Rheumatol. 2021 Aug;17(8):449-461. doi: 10.1038/s41584-021-00648-5. Epub 2021 Jul 5. PMID: 34226730 Review.Cover used courtesy Springer Nature Limited.

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.