One of the first things Tim Davis of the Public Health Lab in Shoreline does everyday when he goes to work in the Newborn Screening Laboratory is look for red dots. The dots help Davis determine if any of the approximately 82,000 babies born every year in the state are at risk of serious disorders that while treatable, may not always be apparent at birth.
“Typically they’re all benign but we report them for genetic counseling,” Davis said while looking at test results during a Public Health Lab open house on Aug. 31. “Most of them we see and they don’t cause any ill effects. Almost everything we do is a metabolic disorder, we’re looking for enzymes that have gone awry.”
By analyzing drops of blood from a newborn baby’s heel, Davis and other employees in the Newborn Screening Lab know if a baby is at risk for ten different disorders such as Homocystinuria, Galactosemia, and Phenylketonuria (PKU), a deficiency of an enzyme used to break down the amino acid in protein.
Two individuals who recalled times the names of these disorders and others circulated around their family dinner table are sisters Anne and Patricia Guthrie. Their father, the late Dr. Robert Guthrie, developed the screening test for PKU in 1961. Now Shoreline residents, the women joined one of several groups that toured the Public Health Lab in Shoreline.
“Dad went from state to state explaining what the diseases were,” Patricia said. She recalled making posters for her father for him to use while educating others about diseases and ways to prevent them. She said he was nicknamed the “Father of Prevention” and described him as an “absent minded genius type” who traveled the world, told corny jokes and enjoyed sailing.
In 1968, the family of eight filled two Volkswagen buses and traveled to New Zealand so that Guthrie could help construct a newborn screening lab in the area.
“Any place where newborn screening was, people knew him,” Anne said.
At the Public Health Lab at 1610 NE. 150th St. in Shoreline, she appeared to be right. The pair was approached by several employees who were familiar with their father’s work and who asked for their signatures on a book he co-authored. Neither sister signed the book but said that they do plan to bring their mother, Margaret, to the lab so that she can meet employees and autograph the book with their father’s signature stamp.
The first Public Health Lab open house also featured a tour of the environmental sciences lab where components of air, water, and heavy metal and shellfish samples are tested.
“Dust, sage brush, wine, milk, you name it comes in here for testing,” lab chemist Harold Ruark said. The lab equipment that is necessary for detecting trace levels is so sensitive it must be screened against seismic activity, he said.
Groups were also led through the public health microbiology lab where services focus on foodborne illnesses, sexually transmitted diseases, mycobacteriology, virus isolation and viral serology.
According to lab microbiologist David Boyle, employees can test for bird flu, the West Nile virus, and whooping cough in addition to rabies and HIV.
At the end of the tours participants collected informational fliers and asked more questions.
“It’s a pretty busy place here,” Lain Knowles, director of public health laboratories operations said. “We don’t let people back here very often.”
Additional information about the Public Health Laboratories may
be found at www.doh.wa.gov/
EHSPHL/PHL.htm.
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