From February 24-26, multiple Wadsworth Center laboratories hosted an Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) Fellow from the Colorado State Public Health Lab. The main purpose of the visit was for the fellow to gain experience with the New York State Environmental Laboratory Approval Program’s (ELAP) accredited method for enumerating Legionella in environmental samples using the internationally recognized ISO 11731:2017 standard.
Currently, Colorado’s State Public Health Laboratory utilizes the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) method for measuring Legionella in environmental samples. However, due to recent, ongoing issues with the CDC method, they have been sending their Legionella samples to the CDC Environmental Legionella Isolation Techniques Evaluation (ELITE) Certified Legionella Reference Laboratory at the State Hygienic Laboratory at the University of Iowa for analysis. The Colorado APHL fellow is exploring the ISO 11731:2017 method as an alternative to the CDC method and turned to Wadsworth’s Laboratory of Environmental Biology (LEB) experts for guidance.
The fellow spent time with LEB research scientists Dr. Nirupam Biswas and Samantha Miramontes, learning sample filtration, treatment and plating methods as well as a Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time-of-Flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) method to speciate any isolated Legionella. To complete their training in the ISO method, the APHL fellow also shadowed Wadsworth’s Media and Tissue Culture Core to learn Legionella culture media preparation. While at the Wadsworth Center, the APHL fellow also visited clinical laboratories at the David Axelrod Institute to learn Legionella whole-genome sequencing (Bacteriology Laboratory under Dr. Kimberlee Musser) and MALDI identification of Candida auris and other Candida (Mycology Laboratory under Dr. Sudha Chaturvedi). This is a perfect example of what public health is about - going beyond state boundaries and helping maintain the health and welfare of people through interlaboratory sharing and cooperation among state public health laboratories.