For Immediate Release
Tacoma, WA, October 19, 2022 – At the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) 2022 Newborn Screening Symposium, APHL presented awards to six leaders in the field of newborn screening.
“Through their work, all recipients have directly improved the quality of life of newborns and their families,” said Scott J. Becker, MS, chief executive officer, APHL. “We commend the exceptional and innovative work of all those who were nominated.”
The following awards were presented in a ceremony during the Symposium today in Tacoma, WA:
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:
- Sylvia Mann, MS, CGC, genomics section chief, Children with Special Health Needs Branch, Hawaii Department of Health
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:
- Natasha F. Bonhomme, founder, Expecting Health; chief strategy officer, Genetic Alliance
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:
- Mei W. Baker, MD, director, Newborn Screening Laboratory, Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene
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:
- Andreas Rohrwasser, PhD, MBA, director, Utah Public Health Laboratory
The Clinician Champion Award honors someone involved in patient care and who has made significant contributions in one or more of the following areas: ensuring newborns receive adequate screening and appropriate follow-up; assuring timely and effective communication of screening results to patients and families; and contributing to efforts to strengthen the impact of the public health newborn screening system by being directly involved in follow-up care, community affairs, newborn screening advocacy and/or community activities.
- Susan A. Berry, MD, professor, Division of Genetics and Metabolism, Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota
The Achievements in Public Health Informatics Award honors a person working in any aspect of newborn screening worldwide and has made significant contributions in one or more of the following areas: enhancing implementation practices for electronic messaging; developing strategies for achieving effective data management; improving laboratory capability for health information data exchange; or providing new and creative approaches to communicate findings through data visualization.
- Brendan Reilly, program specialist VI / health informaticist III, Biochemistry and Genetics Branch, Laboratory Services Section, Texas Department of State Health Services
“We congratulate all award winners and thank them for their contributions to advancing the essential work of newborn screening,” Becker said.
Learn more about the APHL Newborn Screening Symposium.
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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.
Contact Michelle Forman at 240-485-2793 or michelle.forman@aphl.org
