Lab Matters Spring 2026 | Page 9

MEMBERSHIP

By Robert Myers, PhD, director

Laboratory staff photo taken in fall of 2023 commemorating Maryland ' s 125th anniversary. Photo: MDH Laboratories Administration.

Year established: Our roots can be traced to our founding in 1898 when, at the recommendation of the Maryland Board of Health, the legislature appropriated $ 2,500 to hire a State Biologist( Bacteriologist), Dr. William R. Stokes. His mandate was to provide free testing to physicians to establish a more rigorous scientific basis for the diagnosis of communicable diseases, and to examine drinking water and food for bacterial contamination to guide public health officials in implementing more effective sanitation measures. To this day, we continue to be a sciencebased organization providing sound, actionable, objective and unaffiliated information to medical professionals, public health partners and others to implement appropriate prevention and control measures by providing accurate and timely laboratory test results. We are considered to be the oldest continuous operating unit in the Maryland Department of Health( MDH).

Location: Our central laboratory is physically located in east Baltimore, adjacent to the Johns Hopkins University Medical campus. We also operate two smaller regional environmental testing laboratories, one in western Maryland in Cumberland and the other in Salisbury on Maryland’ s eastern shore.

Facility: Construction of our central laboratory was completed in spring 2015. The approximately 237,000-square-foot energy efficient building is LEED Silver certified and includes energy saving features such as HVAC heat recovering enthalpy wheels, case work made from renewable materials, such as bamboo, and a green roof. Our laboratories are housed on six floors of the building, which features an open-plan design with mobile case work that allows for more flexible use and efficient use of space, allowing us to expand our testing capabilities and adapt to emerging threats, enhancing our overall preparedness efforts to better respond to outbreaks and environmental hazards. Our facility also contains over 17,000-square-feet of BSL-3 laboratories so our staff can safely work with highconsequence pathogens that are regularly encountered in public health laboratory practice. Additionally, the complex mechanical systems needed to operate our building are housed in a two-story penthouse with two rooftop 2.0-megawatt diesel generators that can completely power the facility for up to 72 hours when disconnected from the power grid.

The building infrastructure is organized around five scientific divisions— Environmental Sciences, Newborn Screening, Molecular Biology, Virology / Immunology and Public Health Microbiology— based on the diversity of scientific disciplines that are practiced in the facility to address a variety of public health problems. Our scientists are continuously improving our test systems by adapting and applying advanced technologies for better solutions to detect and characterize newly emerging and reemerging infectious diseases; respond to the growing threat of antimicrobial drug resistance; identify existing and novel chemical, radiological and microbiological contamination of our food and water supplies; and develop effective newborn screening tests for treatable heritable disorders. Approximately 9.8 million tests were performed by the Laboratories Administration in fiscal year 2025( July 01, 2024 to June 30, 2025). We contribute not only to the mission of the Health Department, but to many other state federal and local government partners and to communities across the state.

Number of staff: We are staffed by approximately 220 full-time and contractual employees, most of which are based in our Baltimore laboratory. Our diverse workforce is highly educated, with approximately 75 % of employees having a scientific or technical background. We also have a hard-working, dedicated cohort of support staff that are vitally important to sustain the success of our laboratory operations.

Distinguishing characteristics: We celebrated our laboratory’ s 125th anniversary in the fall of 2023.

Highest volume testing: Our highest testing volume is performed by our

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