Past Winners
2009 Recipient
Allan Antley, BA
Retired Operations Liaison, Homeland Security Laboratory Response
Center in the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
Environmental Protection Agency
Allan Antley retired in 2009 as the Operations Liaison in the Homeland Security Laboratory Response Center in the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response at EPA. His primary duty in this role was the development of the Environmental Laboratory Response Network (ERLN), EPA’s counterpart to the LRN, created so that the EPA can coordinate environmental laboratory responses to biological, chemical or radiochemical events. His valuable contributions assisted in the creation of network procedures to address network issues such as prioritization of agents, analytical methods, quality assurance, and data management. He also established membership criteria and operational procedures, including building relations with other federal agencies, and state and commercial laboratories. Mr. Antley was an active supporter of APHL, participating in the APHL LRN Partners workgroup, and providing regular updates to APHL’s Environmental Health Committee and Environmental Laboratory Subcommittee. Additionally he contributed to the development of the EPA emergency drinking water regional response plans and exercises, participated in by APHL members.
2008 Recipient
Dorothy Sussman, RN, MFA
Associate Director for Policy, Division of Laboratory Science
National Center for Environmental Health, CDC
Sussman has continuously promoted and advanced public health laboratory science and practice. In her current role as associate director for policy at the National Center for Environmental Health, she works behind the scenes coordinating and ensuring the continued development and success of programs such as newborn screening, biomonitoring and the chemical component of the LRN.
Due in part to her contributions, biomonitoring is considered the gold standard for assessing human exposure to environmental contaminants. Sussman’s efforts in this area include managing state biomonitoring cooperative agreements, which provided two states and a consortium of six states with funding to further develop and perform human biomonitoring. She has provided valuable assistance to states that have successfully passed biomonitoring legislation and has both written and presented in support of biomonitoring on numerous occasions. Additionally, Sussman orchestrated the release of reports to members of Congress, agency heads, the press, industry and other nongovernmental groups, academic institutions, the general public, state public health laboratories and federal agencies to increase understanding about human exposures to environmental contaminants.
2005 Recipients
Neil Buist, MB, ChB
Professor Emeritus
Oregon Health and Science University
Buist’s leadership and vision have greatly contributed to the success of newborn screening programs. Over the course of his 50-year career, Buist has been instrumental in promoting universal newborn screening nationwide and continues to be a strong voice for expanded screening for many disorders. Buist received his medical training in Scotland and went on to direct the Pediatric Metabolic Laboratory and the Metabolic Birth Defects Center at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) for many years. He now serves as emeritus professor at OHSU. A strong supporter of state public health laboratories, Buist has served on numerous work groups and committees to promote newborn screening as a public health activity. His achievements include playing a significant role in the 1970s in developing the first regional newborn screening program in the US; being a leader in the early work on maternal PKU prevention and pioneering new approaches to the dietary management of PKU; describing new disorders, such as Rippling Muscle Disease; and being a medical consultant to the Northwest Regional Newborn Screening Program for more than 20 years. Over the span of his career, Buist has been a tireless advocate whose enthusiasm and persistence have greatly contributed to the success of newborn screening programs and to the health of infants around the world.
Paul Duffey, PhD
Chief of Immunoserology and Biologics Section
Microbial Diseases Laboratory
Duffey was the recipient of the On the Front Line Award in recognition of his significant achievements working in public health for the Microbial Diseases Laboratory (MDL), California Department of Health Services, for more than 25 years. Over the past eight years, Duffey has led a formidable effort to develop and produce polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies for the serologic detection and typing of Salmonella. Currently, all state public health laboratories receive CDC Salmonella antisera produced by the MDL, which generates epidemiologic and laboratory data for CDC annually on more than 50,000 lab-reported infections to track outbreaks, epidemiological trends and the emergence of low frequency serotypes or common serotypes expressing new antimicrobial resistance patterns. Duffey has also been in the forefront in California’s bioterrorism preparedness efforts. For the past five years, he has been the Biologic Capacity lead for DHS in setting up and establishing the Laboratory Response Network (LRN) in California, and he played an important role in the establishment of 13 reference LRN public health laboratories in the state.