By Linette Granen, APHL Director, Membership & Marketing
While at the APHL Annual Meeting in Seattle, you may be wondering how to learn more about technology that is on the cutting edge, is easily implemented in your laboratory and is a new way of thinking about analysis in general. The answer is by attending the Industry Workshops! These workshops will be held after the sessions on Monday, May 21 from 5:30-8 pm. The first four will run concurrently from 5:30-6:30 pm. Do not fear, there will be refreshments between sessions from 6:30-7pm. At 7:00, the next three workshops will take place. All are on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the Seattle Westin. Check out page 15 of your program for more information!
Leading off the pack at 5:30 pm will be Abbott, QIAGEN (Cellestis)), Life Technologies, and PerkinElmer.
- Abbott: Their workshop will focus on their PLEX ID, and the speakers will be our own members, Robyn Atkinson (UT), Dee Pettit (VA) and Billie Ann Juni (MN). The presentations will highlight how the PLEX ID can be a tool for broad detection and surveillance.
- QIAGEN (Cellestis): Although not generally known, Cellestis is now a QIAGEN company. Their workshop will about the implementation of Quantiferon testing for TB in public health laboratories. The two speakers will be Jim Beebe (San Luis Obispo PHL) and Scott Lindquist (WA State TB Consultant).
- Life Technologies: If you haven’t heard of low cost, rapid sequencing, you should attend the Life Technologies presentation on their Ion Torrent with a myriad of uses in influenza typing, bacterial identification and newborn screening. Brian Kelly from the company will be presenting.
- PerkinElmer: A hot topic in newborn screening, the screening for lysosomal storage disorders, will be presented by Alex Cherkasskly of PerkinElmer. An informative, interesting workshop should be on tap there.
After you’ve attended one of the preceding workshops, migrate to the foyer of the second floor where libations and light cuisine awaits for your drinking and eating pleasure. At 7 pm the second round of workshops will begin.
- Roche’s Carol Hausrath will discuss the newly FDA approved Roche cobas® CT/NG Test.
- Luminex will offer information on improving efficiency in newborn screening, enhancing RVP surveillance and GI pathogen screening utilizing the company’s newest multiplex analyses. The speakers will be Susan Neill and Charudutt Shah from Luminex, and Sanjib Bhattacharyya (Milwaukee).
- ThermoFisher will be offering a presentation on sensitive determination of hexavalent chromium in drinking water, with Brian Luckenbill from Thermo as the speaker, for all of the environmental laboratory folks who are interested.
I am confident that the companies have some surprises for all of us during the presentations, so I cannot wait to attend! Also, be sure to visit these companies and all of the rest of the exhibitors in the exhibit hall beginning on Sunday afternoon. As always, there will be a raffle and you must complete your entry card before 3:30 pm on Monday to enter the prize drawing for a whole host of exciting prizes.
APHL would like to thank the companies presenting these workshops for their on-going support through their membership and partnership, and we extend that appreciation to all of APHL’s sustaining members!
