APHL Celebrates 2021 Newborn Screening Award Winners

For Immediate Release

Silver Spring, MD, October 14, 2021 – At the 2021 APHL Newborn Screening Symposium, APHL presented awards to leaders in the field of newborn screening. Through their work, all recipients have directly improved the quality of life of newborns and their families. We commend the exceptional and innovative work of all those who were nominated.

On October 13,2021, the following awards were presented in a virtual ceremony:

The George Cunningham Visionary Award in Newborn Screening is given to someone who has made the greatest contribution to expanding or improving the screening of newborns by public health agencies in one or more states. This year’s award recipient is:

• C. Ronald Scott, MD, medical director, University of Washington PKU/Biochemical Genetics Clinics; professor of pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine

The Judi Tuerck Newborn Screening Follow-up and Education Award honors someone who has made significant and outstanding contributions in one or more of the following areas: enhancing the caliber of the newborn screening system; improving follow-up and education; developing creative short term follow-up strategies that significantly reduce the time to diagnosis and treatment of affected infants; developing or enhancing long term follow-up strategies; establishing novel approaches or methods for managing the integration of new technologies in newborn screening; translating novel approaches or methods into best practices or guidelines for follow-up and education; providing innovative newborn screening follow-up training/education for best practices; or improving practices to ensure timely detection, reporting, intervention and treatment for newborns detected with disorders/conditions. This year’s award recipient is:

• Cynthia L. Ingham, RN, BSN, executive director, New England Regional Genetics Group (NERGG) Inc.

The Everyday Life Saver Award in Newborn Screening highlights the meaningful, ongoing ways the recipient contributes to the morale of their team and/or operations of their program on a daily basis. This year’s recipient is:

• M. Christine Dorley, PhD, assistant director, Newborn Screening Laboratory, Tennessee Department of Health, Division of Laboratory Services

The Harry Hannon Laboratory Improvement Award in Newborn Screening award honors someone who has made significant contributions in one or more of the following areas: assuring the quality of testing, enhancing the specificity of tests, establishing new creative laboratory approaches and technologies, providing laboratory training/education for new technologies and tests, or improving the detection of newborn disorders/conditions. This year’s recipient is:

• Roger Eaton, PhD, director, New England Newborn Screening Program, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School

Congratulations to all award winners.

Contact Michelle Forman at 240-485-2793 or michelle.forman@aphl.org

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The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) works to strengthen laboratory systems serving the public’s health in the U.S. and globally. APHL’s member laboratories protect the public’s health by monitoring and detecting infectious and foodborne diseases, environmental contaminants, terrorist agents, genetic disorders in newborns and other diverse health threats. Learn more at www.aphl.org.