Lab Matters Fall 2016 | Page 31

member spotlight

Director

Pentella was born in Canton, OH, home of the Football Hall of Fame. He earned two degrees in microbiology before moving to Florida to work as a clinical microbiologist at Lakeland Regional Medical Center Hospital, while earning his MS and PhD. In 2001, he accepted a position as program manager at the State Hygienic Laboratory – University of Iowa, where he advanced to associate director before leaving in 2013 to assume the directorship of the Massachusetts Public Health Laboratory.

Staff

The laboratory has 120 employees, divided among six divisions: microbiology headed by Tracy Stiles, MS; molecular biology and virology headed by Smole; chemistry headed by Jamshid Eshraghi, PhD; quality assurance facilitated by Kim Doan; biosafety led by Shoolah Escott, MS, MT( ASCP); support services headed by Keith Parry; and information technology.

Revenue

The laboratory’ s $ 15 million annual budget comes from a mix of state funding( 45 %), grants( 46 %) and fees.

We meet regularly with state partners in Epidemiology and Food Protection to discuss in real time all potential foodborne outbreak investigations. These investigations require a coordinated effort from all three groups to be successful.

– Tracy Stiles, MS

Testing

Since another state department oversees water, air and soil testing, most of the 250,000 annual samples submitted for testing are clinical. And although the laboratory has capability for highly specialized testing— serving as a Level 1 Laboratory Response Network – Chemical( LRN-C) laboratory, Tier 1 LRN – Biological laboratory and a BioWatch facility— its highest-volume tests are for common sexually transmitted infections— gonorrhea, chlamydia, HIV and syphilis— and TB. These four tests alone generate more than 100,000 test results per year. Among its environmental tests are assays for eastern equine encephalitis in mosquito pools, Vibrio parahaemolyticus in oysters and various pathogens in food.

Away from the bench, the laboratory boasts impressive collaborations with state and community partners, including:

• An active outreach program for biological and chemical threat training for first responders and sentinel clinical labs

• A training program for post-doctoral research fellows

• Numerous research projects with the surrounding academic community, such as a partnership with Harvard School of Public Health to sequence archived Bordetella pertussis isolates

•“ Active engagement” with the co-located state epidemiologists, including a biweekly food safety meeting

• Collaboration with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’ s training program for clinical microbiologists

Said Pentella,“ We engage in many discussions with the infectious disease epidemiologists and other health department bureaus that make for a good relationship between the laboratory and the primary users of our test results.”

Success Stories

• Embracing new technology has always been a laboratory forte. In the past few years, for example, the laboratory has adopted MALDI-TOF for bacterial identification and acquired four next-generation sequencing platforms for detection of foodborne pathogens, respiratory pathogens and other disease agents.

• This year, the laboratory attained ISO 17025 accreditation for food testing for pathogenic bacteria. Kim Doan, the ISO Certification Manager, stated

MA SPHL Management Team( from l to r): Keith Parry, Shoolah Escott, MS, MT( ASCP), Sandy Smole, PhD, Kim Doan, Michael Pentella, PhD, Jamshid Eshraghi, PhD and Tracy Stiles, MS

“ Through hard work, communication, support within the agency and outside the agency, we are able to achieve our goals in producing good quality results in a timely manner to our providers and in essence protecting the public.”

Other notable achievements include:

• Detecting and sequencing the pathogen, norovirus, at the center of a highprofile Chipotle restaurant outbreak earlier this year

• Providing analytical support for myriad other high-profile public health investigations, including an imported case of measles, an imported case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, a case of anthrax related to imported goat skins and many, many others

• Instituting a biomonitoring program through a grant awarded in 2014

• Establishing an insectary to study the emergence and over-wintering of Aedes albopictus in Massachusetts

• Expanding its safety program substantially. The laboratory established a safety committee, hired a biosafety manager, updated its safety procedures, conducted on-site risk assessments and is now reaching out to area clinical labs.

Challenges

Pentella said the laboratory’ s“ biggest challenge” is the facility renovation:“ We’ re very much engaged in how we’ re going to do this and still operate on a 24 / 7, 365-day basis.” Other challenges include:

• Replacing experienced scientists as they retire

• Maintaining adequate resources for critical operations

• Assuring“ our staff get the training they need for the kind of testing we’ re going to be doing in the future,” such as genetic sequencing.“ We’ re on the cusp of some excellent new technology and we need to optimize that and apply it thoughtfully to achieve the best public health outcomes.”

Goals

Pentella’ s goals for the laboratory are simple, yet lofty:

• Stay on top of test technology

• Improve IT systems.“ We’ re looking at how to modernize our software and migrate from three laboratory information management systems to just one.”

Pentella said,“ More and more patient testing is going to the patient bedside. But we’ re still here in public health to help epis quickly determine the source of infection to prevent transmission. That’ s how healthcare will be improved in the future— to quickly respond to clusters of infection. We don’ t see the large sustained outbreaks we did in the past. Yet, there are many opportunities for public health to expand, such as looking at antibiotic resistance and how that’ s spread. I really think we’ re at an exciting time in public health and we’ re able to do a great deal more in the public health laboratory. But you have to manage adoption of technology very carefully to bring those future visions to fruition as economically and efficiently as possible.”