FELLOWS
APHL Initiates Classes of AR, Bioinformatics Fellows
by Heather Roney, MA, manager, Fellowship Programs
The Antimicrobial Resistance (AR)
Fellowship program held its orientation
at CDC’s Roybal Campus in August.
Fellows attended presentations by CDC
programs, participated in discussions
with subject matter experts and received
detailed laboratory walk-throughs. The
experience provided a closer look at how
CDC is working to combat the rising
threat of AR and the fellows’ role in
that effort.
The Bioinformatics Fellowship program
followed with its orientation in
September, also in Atlanta. Prior to the
orientation, fellows attended a machine
learning course hosted by CDC and
the Applied Bioinformatics Laboratory.
During the orientation, fellows were
given an overview of APHL and the
role that sequencing has played in the
evolution of infectious disease detection
and surveillance. Fellows were given an
overview of the bioinformatics resources
at both the CDC and at the state PHLs.
During the presentation on state PHL
bioinformatics capacity, the unique
challenges that PHLs face in this arena
were discussed.
Current Bioinformatics Fellows Curtis
Kapsak and Tiffany Hsu and current
AR Fellows Nicholas Florek and Emily
Snavely attended ASM’s next generation
sequencing conference in Tysons, VA
in September. Snavely and Hsu were
awarded travel scholarships based on
their abstracts. Snavely’s abstract was
entitled “Development and Validation
of a Clinical Whole Genome Sequencing
Pipeline for the Detection of Antimicrobial
Resistance Gene’s in Bacterial Isolates”
was selected for an oral presentation.
Hsu presented a poster on building
bioinformatics capabilities in New
England public health laboratories.
Applications for the 2019 Antimicrobial
Resistance and Bioinformatics Fellowship
programs are now open. For information
about these and other APHL fellowship
programs, please see our website.
Top: AR Fellows attend an orientation program at CDC in
August. (l to r:) Bradley Craft, Nadine Peinovich, Abby Hoffman
and Jessica Plemmons
Bottom: APHL’s newest class of Bioinformatics Fellows at their
orientation program. (l to r:) Erin Young, Yvette Unoarumhi,
Peter Cook, Curtis Kapsak and Vincent Caruso
Former Infectious Diseases Fellow Thomas
Moore presented a poster at the August
ICEID meeting in Atlanta. “Enhanced
Surveillance for Heartland Virus in
Tennessee” was based on his fellowship
work at the Tennessee Department of
Health. n
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Fall 2018 LAB MATTERS
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