FELLOWS
APHL Fellowship Programs Update
by Heather Roney, MA, manager, Fellowship Programs
The Antimicrobial Resistance (AR)
Laboratory Fellows started their
fellowship program this summer.
Fellows are working at 11 public health
laboratories and the US Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
where they will participate in testing
activities and research projects to improve
the prevention, detection and response
to multidrug-resistant pathogens. An
orientation at CDC August 12-16 provided
a closer look at the ways CDC works to
combat the rising threat of AR and the
role the fellows would play during their
fellowship.
Nine current and previous Bioinformatics
Fellows presented their work at AMD
2-Day, a two-day symposium that
showcases the work of CDC scientist and
public health partners applying AMD
technologies to find and fight infectious
diseases. The Bioinformatics Fellowship
Program also held its orientation for nine
new fellows on September 25, and all
new fellows participated in AMD 2-Day.
The director of CDC’s Office of Advanced
Molecular Detection also took the new
fellows on a tour of the sequencing core
at CDC.
In 2019, APHL recruited the first cohort
of APHL-CDC Newborn Screening (NBS)
Bioinformatics Fellows for training in
molecular genetic testing, next-generation
sequencing (NGS) technologies,
infrastructure development, pipeline
design and validation, and data analytics
for certain disorders on the recommended
uniform screening panel:
• Samantha Marcellus, MPH, will
develop and standardize a pipeline
and database for accurately analyzing
and querying severe combined
immunodeficiency (SCID) NGS data at
the Texas Department of State Health
Services
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LAB MATTERS Fall 2019
APHL’s AR Fellows attend orientation at CDC in August. First row (l to r): Sarah Namugenyi, Mondraya Howard, Jennifer Rivers,
Kimberly McCullor. Second row (l to r): Lindsay Parnell, Julie Miranda, Sara Belknap, Anna Hasche-Kluender, Michael Mamerow,
June Chan, Megan Nelson and Kayla Simanek
• Charles Roberts, MS, will develop and
validate the genetic variant assessment
process from NGS data for second
tier Cystic Fibrosis screening at the
Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene
• Bryce Asay, PhD(c), will be at the Utah
Public Health Laboratory and will begin
early next year with an initial project of
assembling curated variant databases.
DIGITAL EXTRA:
The AR Lab, Bioinformatics and NBS
Bioinformatics Fellowship programs are
currently recruiting for the 2020 class,
and recruitment will close February 29,
2020. Read more about APHL’s fellowship
programs.
APHL is currently recruiting fellows for
the 2020 Ronald Laessig NBS Laboratory
Fellowship Program as well as one more
APHL-CDC NBS Bioinformatics Fellow
for placement at the New York State
Department of Health, Wadsworth Center.
APHL’s Newborn Screening and Genetics
program is excited to welcome the
fellows who will implement validated
NGS algorithms to improve the lives
of newborns, and looks forward
to welcoming five additional NBS
Bioinformatics Fellows in 2020 for
two-year fellowships. n
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