The photographers for UW Communications chose their favorite photos of 2021 and Bryce Richter’s photo below of WisCon Consultant Danica Harrier and Program Manager Ernie Stracener made the cut.

In the photo Danica and Ernie are demonstrating an N95 respirator fit testing kit WisCon developed for long-term care facilities to use during the pandemic.

WSLH Senior Data Scientist Kelsey Florek sat down for an interview with ASBMB Today, the member magazine of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, to talk about what bioinformatics is, Kelsey’s work at the WSLH, and her career journey.

Read the interview

 

In accordance with Wis. 343.305, the WSLH provides specimen collection kits to law enforcement agencies, hospitals and clinics for the purpose of an OWI investigation. The contract with the current OWI kit vendor has expired and a new contract has been awarded to a new vendor.

As of January 1, 2022, the WSLH will be using Tritech, a commercial supplier, to assemble and ship the OWI blood kits. The kit components will look slightly different but will remain the same in terms of function, quality and integrity. The ordering process may be completed using the Tritech ordering link.

Please read this memo for more information.

Please note the following changes to the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene’s operations due to the observance of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

The table below lists the hours of operations for our Clinical Specimen Receiving department. We will have staffing to accept clinical specimens at both our 2601 Agriculture Drive and our 465 Henry Mall facilities.

NOTE: Our Environmental Health Division will NOT be accepting samples on Dec. 24th or Dec. 31st.

As always, if you have an off-hours emergency, please call the WSLH Emergency Pager at 608-263-3280.

 

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) has added, by emergency rule, screening for Pompe disease to the Wisconsin Newborn Screening Program’s panel of conditions. This rule will go into effect once it is published in the Wisconsin State Journal, which is expected to occur on January 10, 2022.

For more information on this rule and Pompe disease, please read this joint WI DHS and WSLH letter.

The Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene will be closed on Thursday, November 25, 2021 for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Our Specimen Receiving departments will observe the following hours of operation for the Thanksgiving holiday:

 

 

 

UW Oshkosh graduate student Sarah Woody spent this past summer looking at heavy metal concentrations in sediment, plant and muskrat tissue at Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge. Sarah collaborated with Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene Trace Elements Clean Lab (TECL) scientists to perform the sample processing and analysis for her research.

See Sarah in her waders collecting samples in the Marsh and in her lab coat in the TECL in this video produced by UW Oshkosh

Since 2015, scientists in the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene (WSLH) Communicable Disease Division (CDD) have been collaborating with Dr. Jon Temte, UW professor of family medicine and UW School of Medicine and Public Health associate dean for public health and community engagement, on the Oregon Child Absenteeism Due to Respiratory Disease Study (ORCHARDS).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-funded research has been helping families and schools in the Village of Oregon, WI, track and understand seasonal influenza and other respiratory illnesses.

WSLH CDD scientists test ORCHARDS specimens for influenza and other respiratory diseases, but early in the COVID-19 pandemic couldn’t also perform SARS-CoV-2 analysis due to limited supply and testing constraints at the time.

However, the WSLH stores the ORCHARDS specimens after testing and earlier this year CDD scientists analyzed archived specimens collected from students between September 2019 and June 2020 for SARS-CoV-2 and performed whole genome sequencing.

Through this process researchers found that the first-known case of household transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Wisconsin happened in March 2020.

Learn more about the ORCHARDS discovery from these articles –

UW-Madison news release – As schools reopen, Oregon virus surveillance project helps families navigate complex time

Wisconsin Medical Journal – Evidence of Early Household Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Involving a School-aged Child

Wisconsin State Journal – UW flu study in Oregon School District expands to COVID-19

A paper published online in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society reports on a collaboration between the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) housed at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene (WSLH) along with the WSLH’s Trace Elements Clean Lab and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) studying lead isotopes in precipitation during the Saharan dust incursion into southeast U.S. last summer.

From the abstract: “This storm provided a means to evaluate the influence of Saharan dust in North America confirmed by independent satellite and ground observations.”

The photo below from NASA Worldview shows the dust storm cloud in June 2020.

Please note the following changes to the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene’s operations due to the observance of the Labor Day holiday.

The table below lists the hours of operations for our Clinical Specimen Receiving departments.

As always, if there is an emergency, please call the WSLH Emergency Answering Service at 608-263-3280.