U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin toured the State Hygienic Laboratory on Friday, Nov. 15, and described the environmental and public health laboratory of Iowa as "one of the best in the nation."

Mary DeMartino, interim director of the Disease Control Division, speaks to Sen. Harkin (left) and Christopher Atchison about this summer's Cyclospora outbreak.

The Coralville facility opened in 2010, funded in part by federal support that Sen. Harkin helped secure. In 2005, Harkin visited the former Hygienic Laboratory facility in Oakdale Hall, an old tuberculosis sanitarium that had been retrofitted as a laboratory. That building was demolished in March 2011.

During the recent tour, three staff members talked with Sen. Harkin about their programs. Nancy Hall, Environmental Microbiology manager, discussed testing for water quality with the senator, who shared a story about getting municipal drinking water to his hometown of Cumming, Iowa. Stan Berberich, Ph.D., explained the Newborn Screening Program's integrated partnership between Iowa Department of Public Health, the University of Iowa's Children's Hospital and the Hygienic Laboratory. Mary DeMartino, interim director of the Disease Control Division, explained the staff's emergency response to this summer's Cyclospora outbreak.

Harkin and Director Christopher Atchison also talked about regional partnerships, the importance of early interventions in public health and the Hygienic Laboratory's work with the CDC and other federal agencies. Atchison explained current collaborations in STEM programing, and gave the senator an update on construction of the Iowa Center for Laboratory Science. The center, funded in part by a grant from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust, will be built in the lower level of the Hygienic Lab's Coralville facility.

When asked by a local reporter about his visit to the Hygienic Lab, Harkin encouraged people to think about "all the things that make our life better just because of public health, and how much public health and laboratory scientists do for the public."