MEMBERSHIP
Delaware Public Health Laboratory: At a Crossroads
by Nancy Maddox, MPH, writer
Measured by either land area (about
25,000 square miles) or permanent
population (about 900,000 people),
Delaware is one of the smallest US states.
Yet these statistics, says Sergio Huerta,
MD, director of the Delaware Public Health
Laboratory (DE PHL), are misleading. He
said, “Keep in mind that Delaware is
at the crossroads of three major urban
areas: Philly, Baltimore and Washington,
DC. We have major airports surrounding
us and airplanes coming in from all over
the world.” Additionally, the state hosts
Dover Air Force Base, seasonal migrant
communities, nine million tourists per
year and a segment of Interstate 95—the
major north-south corridor running from
the US-Canadian border to Miami.
“All of these influencers,” said Huerta,
“impact the work of our laboratory,
especially diseases of emerging concern.”
This past summer, for example, the
laboratory aided the diagnosis of
brucellosis within the migrant population.
Add to this ever-changing mix of people a
significant animal population, including
a seasonal inpouring of migratory birds
and one of the country’s leading poultry
industries. “Birds can carry a number
of viruses that we have to monitor for,”
said Huerta.
Fortunately, being a smaller state has its
advantages: “I can get to state leaders
easily, often just by picking up the
phone,” Huerta said. The state Laboratory
Preparedness Advisory Committee,
begun in 2001, is something other states
might dream about, as it includes key
decision-makers from Delaware’s clinical,
academic, agricultural and veterinary
laboratories. The group meets biannually
“to educate, inform and integrate program
work.”
Unsurprisingly, DE PHL has an
uncommonly close relationship with
Delaware’s sentinel laboratories: “We
know the hospital lab techs; we went to
the same schools together in many cases,”
said Debra Rutledge, MT(ASCP), MBA,
who oversees infectious disease testing.
In 2012, the laboratory garnered the
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LAB MATTERS Fall 2019
Microbiologists Rebecca Savage (l) and Emma Fare-Peterman (r) suit up to begin collection. Photo: DE PHL
Laboratory Response Network National
Meeting Planning Committee award for
its outstanding sentinel clinical laboratory
training program.
Facility
DE PHL is situated in the city of Smyrna
(population 11,600), about 11 miles
north of the state capital, Dover. The
39,000-square-foot, red-brick laboratory
building is surrounded by three acres
of land and abuts a hospital for the
chronically ill. Built in 1990, the building
gained an additional BSL-3 suite (its
largest) in 2005, along with a modest
expansion of space.
Director and Staff
Huerta was born in Santiago, Chile, where
his father served as a visiting physician-
epidemiologist for the World Health
Organization. He was a small child when
the family relocated to the Washington,
DC, suburbs in the 1950s. Huerta attended
the George Washington University and
earned an MD degree before finishing his
academic career with specialty work in
pathology at New Jersey’s St. Barnabas
Medical Center.
“By that time, I was married, and we
had our firstborn,” said Huerta. “My wife
wanted to move to countryside and to
be closer to family.” Since his in-laws
had passed away, that meant a move to
Delaware, where Huerta’s parents had
retired.
Huerta began his tenure with the
Delaware government as an unpaid
consultant tasked with developing a
business plan for the state’s Department
of Natural Resources and Environmental
Control (DNREC) laboratory. Shortly
thereafter, in 1992, the DNREC laboratory
director retired, and Huerta was offered
the job. He took it. Almost two decades
later, in 2011, the public health laboratory
director retired and Huerta was asked to
“cover” the laboratory until a new director
was in place. The new director, “being
a researcher at heart,” said Huerta, left
after eight months for a position at the
National Institutes of Health (NIH). Again,
Huerta stepped into the breach: “They
asked me to cover and, from that time on,
I guess it stuck. Here I remain.” Since 2012,
Huerta has had a dual role as director of
the DNREC laboratory and the Division of
Public Health laboratory.
Huerta is supported by 52 people, and, he
said, “They’re all top-notch professionals.”
Among them are Deputy Director
Christina Pleasanton, MS, CO; Infectious
PublicHealthLabs
@APHL
APHL.org