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Division of Bacterial Diseases (DBD) News Bulletin

Summer 2016, Issue 18

In This Issue

  1. DBD Director Accepts WHO Position
  2. Global Health Security Agenda Updates
  3. DBD Welcomes New LLS Fellows and EIS Officers
  4. Michigan Water Crisis, Lab Assessment, & More
  5. Awards
  6. Meetings and Presentation Highlights
  7. Epi-Aids and Investigations
  8. Communications
  9. Publication Highlights

DBD Welcomes New LLS Fellows and EIS Officers

CDC launched its two-year Laboratory Leadership Service (LLS) fellowship program in 2014 that combines competency-based public health laboratory training with practical, applied investigations and service with a focus on biosafety, quality management systems, and management and leadership competencies to provide early career laboratory scientists with a strong foundation for future leadership and management positions in public health laboratories. During the inaugural year, DBD labs were among the first selected for the placement of LLS fellows and the only labs from NCIRD. Anna Llewellyn was DBD’s first LLS Fellow, and is in RDB’s Pneumonia Response and Surveillance Laboratory. This year, Xiaoling Tang will work with staff in the Streptococcus Laboratory and Caelin Cubenas Potts will join the Bacterial Meningitis Laboratory.

LLS Fellows

Photos: Xiaoling Tang, Caelin Cubenas Potts, and Anna Llewellyn (from left to right)

During the spring 2016 Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Conference, DBD recruited 4 new EIS officers. They will join the division for 2-year assignments that start this summer. Please welcome Catherine Eldridge and Jaymin Patel to MVPDB, and Tolulope Adebanjo and Elizabeth Soda to RDB.

EIS officers

Photos: Catherine Eldridge, Jaymin Patel, Tolulope Adebanjo, and Elizabeth Soda (from left to right)

EIS officers have a significant impact in improving the public’s health domestically and internationally through:

  • Identifying causes of disease outbreaks
  • Investigating other urgent public health threats
  • Recommending prevention and control measures
  • Implementing strategies to protect people from injury, disability, illness, and death

EIS Officer Meets Senator Durbin

EIS officer with Senator Durbin

Photo: DBD EIS officer Sana Ahmed meets with Senator Richard Durban, along with EIS officer Chris Hsu from the Poxvirus and Rabies Branch.

RDB EIS Officer Sana Ahmed, who joined DBD in 2015, was invited by the EIS program to meet Illinois Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) when he visited CDC in February to attend briefings about CDC’s emergency response capabilities and the Zika virus and tour the Emergency Operations Center. Ahmed grew up and attended college in Illinois before pursing her medical training. Reflecting on that meeting, Ahmed remarked, “Meeting Senator Durbin was a wonderful opportunity. In sharing some of the highlights of my outbreak experiences working on our exciting programs such as the Legionnaires’ disease prevention initiative and pneumococcal vaccination studies, I hoped to have imparted to the Senator the enthusiasm and dedication EIS officers possess as the frontline disease detectives."

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