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

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.

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.

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.

Find out how Wadsworth Center and its partners have been detecting and tracking down Legionella from culture, prior to commercial availability of media, to direct fluorescent antibody testing, PCR, pulse field gel electrophoresis and now whole genome sequencing of patient and environmental isolates.

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.

SubPart 69-1 Newborn Screening for Phenylketonuria and Other Diseases  

Revisions to the New York State Clinical Laboratory Standards of Practice are now available, including: Current Standards General Systems Standards Effective May 5th, 2021 Specialty Requirements by Category with Microbiology and Pathology Standards of Practice, effective May 2021  Standard Revisions

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 P.O. Box addresses at the David Axelrod Institute and Empire State Plaza have been discontinued.  Mail is being forwarded here or returned to sender, subjecting specimens to unnecessary delays.  Please send all specimens to: Newborn Screening Program, 120 New Scotland Avenue, Albany, NY 12208.  This address is also on the Newborn Screening Collection Forms (DOH 1514).  Thank you for your attention to this matter. 

Please read about Kate's transition from APHL-CDC Bioinformatics Fellow to Research Scientist at Wadsworth Center in the time of COVID-19 on page 21 of Lab Matters.

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.