Alana Sterkel, PhD, D(ABMM), SM(ASCP)^CM has been promoted to Associate Director of the WSLH Communicable Disease Division (CDD) and appointed Assistant Professor (CHS) in the University of Wisconsin Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Dr. Sterkel has served as a Co-Assistant Director for CDD since 2017.

Dr. Sterkel received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her doctoral research focused on subversion of innate immunity by Blastomyces dermatitidis. Following completion of her PhD, Dr. Sterkel was awarded the Clinical Microbiology Fellowship through the UW Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine with a research focus on clinical infections.

After joining the WSLH, Dr. Sterkel has continued her research, which focuses on host-pathogen interactions and investigating clinical data to answer public heath related research questions. An active project in her lab is to investigate the impact of pollution on the immune response to respiratory infections.

In addition, she teaches courses at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and developed an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accredited training rotation for UW infectious disease fellows and pathology residents. Dr. Sterkel also presents scientific talks on the local, regional, state, and national levels, and has published more than 20 peer-reviewed publications.

She is a Diplomat of the American Board of Medical Microbiology and serves as a peer-reviewer for the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, the Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Laboratory Medicine, and the Diagnostic Microbiology and Infectious Disease Journal.

The WisCon Onsite Safety and Health Consultation program at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene helps 300+ small businesses a year provide safe and healthy workplaces for their employees and meet federal OSHA requirements – all for free.

During the pandemic, WisCon expanded its consulting and training services to also include a focus on COVID-19 prevention and control. They also are providing COVID-19 Respiratory Protection Program Administrator Training to support the thousands of skilled nursing and residential care facilities in the state.

Learn more about how WisCon helps small businesses and their employees

In early March 2020, the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene was one of only two labs in Wisconsin providing SARS-CoV-2 testing.

But drawing on its decades-long tradition of working closely with clinical labs in the state, the WSLH and the 100+ members of the Wisconsin Clinical Laboratory Network were able to dramatically expand testing capacity.

Learn more about the history of the WSLH-WCLN partnership and how vital it is to the health of the people of Wisconsin.

 

Responsibility.org and the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene (WSLH) Forensic Toxicology Section have launched the National Resource Toxicologist Pilot Program.

The program is a multi-year (2020-2022) national assessment of forensic toxicology laboratories to identify challenges, successes, gaps, and funding issues related to impaired driving (drugs and alcohol) testing and data. To launch the program, Responsibility.org is providing a three-year, $150,000 grant to the WSLH – Forensic Toxicology Section.

Increasing numbers of impaired drivers are multi-substance impaired, meaning they have both drugs and alcohol in their system. However, due to resource constraints many forensic toxicology laboratories are not able to test for a full range of drugs as well as alcohol. This gives an incomplete picture of the scope of impaired driving in the United States.

Plus, in areas where impaired driving test results are also used by the judicial system and/or public health to determine whether/where impaired drivers should go to treatment, not knowing the full extent of what substances the driver was using means decision makers don’t have all the information they need to best assess and assist the driver.

Impaired driving is a systemic multi-factor problem, and toxicology laboratories are key potential sources of data to better understand the full extent of the problem in order to increase public safety and decrease tragedies resulting from impaired driving. To better understand the full extent, additional research is needed to assess the financial and operational challenges that toxicology labs face in testing for substances.

In partnership with the Society of Forensic Toxicologists, WSLH Forensic Toxicology Section Director Amy Miles will conduct a national assessment of state toxicology laboratories to improve the quality of data and foster communication with stakeholders such as state highway safety offices, law enforcement, attorneys and judges to gauge the needs of laboratories.

Learn More

National Resource Toxicologist Pilot Program Fact Sheet

News release

On March 4th Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene (WSLH) Communicable Disease Division Director Dr. Allen Bateman joined Kate Archer Kent on Wisconsin Public Radio’s The Morning Show to discuss identifying COVID-19 variants using DNA (aka genomic) sequencing.

The WSLH is one of 4 labs in Wisconsin performing genomic sequencing of COVID-19 virus samples to identify and track the spread of variants in the state.

03/04/2021 The Morning Show interview

02/15/2021 Wisconsin Public Radio story about COVID19 genomic sequencing

On March 15, 2021, the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene (WSLH) Communicable Disease Division will begin testing for Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), Neisseria gonorrhoeae (GC), and Trichomonas vaginalis (TV) using our new Hologic Panther System. This change in testing requires different collection kits from previous test methods and previous collection kits will no longer be accepted.

Please refer to the pictorial collection kit guide to determine which kits are most appropriate for your patients.

The BD collection kits we previously accepted may be discarded after the change has occurred. They will no longer be accepted for testing after March 31, 2021.

Existing submitters will be sent new Aptima collection kits in preparation for the change. If you do not receive these kits and would like them, please contact our Clinical Orders Department at 800-862-1088 and request collection kits to meet your testing needs for up to 2 weeks at a time.

This change in testing will allow us to continue to provide highly accurate testing with potentially shorter time to results – and all at the same cost.

Complete new test announcement and pictorial collection kit guide

Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene Senior Scientist Martin Shafer published an article about Wisconsin’s COVID-19 wastewater surveillance program in Central States Water, the official magazine of the Central States Water Environment Association.

The wastewater surveillance program is a joint collaboration between the WSLH, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. By routinely monitoring the amount of genetic material of SARS-CoV-2 present in wastewater, WSLH and UW-M scientists can determine whether, and to what extent, the SARS-CoV-2 virus (the virus causing COVID-19) is circulating within communities in Wisconsin.

Track the results of wastewater surveillance testing and learn more at https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/covid-19/wastewater.htm

 

On January 21st, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources announced the presence of elevated levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in surface water samples taken from Madison-area lakes and along the Yahara River.

The Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene Organic Chemistry Section analyzed the samples for 36 PFAS compounds, including PFOS and PFOA.

The Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene is one of four laboratories performing genetic sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 virus in Wisconsin patient specimens.

In this story from USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, WSLH Communicable Disease Division Director Al Bateman explains why genetic sequencing surveillance is such a powerful tool for learning where the virus is circulating and how it is changing.

Dr. Allen (Al) Bateman has been named the new Director of the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene Communicable Disease Division. The position was previously held by Dr. Peter Shult for 24 years before he retired in December 2020. Dr. Bateman served as a Co-Assistant Director under Dr. Shult since 2017.

Dr. Bateman earned his PhD and Master’s degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in cellular and molecular biology and virology, and public health epidemiology and global health, respectively. After completing his degrees Dr. Bateman gained experience in programmatic public health as an epidemiologist at both Wisconsin and North Carolina Departments of Health. He then was awarded a three-year NIH Fogarty Global Health fellowship for which he moved to Zambia and worked with the Zambian national diagnostic reference laboratory.

Dr. Bateman is a Diplomate of the American Board of Medical Microbiology, has published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles, serves as a peer-reviewer for a number of journals and serves on committees for the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) and many other international societies.