member spotlight
Nebraska Public Health Laboratory:
A Horse of a Different Color
By Nancy Maddox, MPH, writer
The Nebraska Public Health Laboratory
(NPHL), says Director Peter Iwen,
PhD, D(ABMM), is “unique compared
to other public health labs.”
Following reorganization in 1997, the
laboratory moved to the University of
Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) campus
in Omaha, under the directorship of
Steven Hinrichs, MD, and it continues
under the university’s administrative
support today. While NPHL staff are UNMC
employees, most funding is received
through contractual agreements with
the Nebraska Department of Health
and Human Services (NE-DHHS). “In
this arrangement,” said Iwen, “federal
grant dollars flow through NE-DHHS via
contracts that are executed to obtain
fiscal support for the laboratory.”
A second distinctive feature of the NPHL
is its workload: the laboratory performs
only human testing and other highly
specialized epidemiological services.
Although NPHL coordinates routine STD,
viral, fungal, bacterial, TB and parasite
testing, much of this work is contracted
out as fee-for-service testing through
laboratories at Nebraska Medicine (NM),
the academically-affiliated hospital on the
UNMC campus. Basically, said Iwen, “NPHL
performs clinical testing or manages the
shipment of specimens for testing that
the hospital laboratory does not perform.”
The advantages of this arrangement
for NM and NPHL include decreased
costs for routine testing, due to the
increased economies of scale achieved
by combining test volumes, plus the
opportunity for NPHL scientists to do
collaborative research and to teach at
UNMC—major benefits in a “fiscally
reserved” state whose cattle population
outnumbers its 1.9 million residents.
Facility
NPHL is one of 95 laboratories in the
Durham Research Center II tower, sited
on the western edge of the UNMC
campus, five miles west of the Missouri
River, which separates Nebraska
32
LAB MATTERS Fall 2017
NPHL staff. Back row (l to r): Karen Stiles, Amanda Heeg, Tony Sambol, Peter Iwen, David Moran, Amanda Bartling, Emily
McCutchen, and Kacie Flaherty. Front row (l to r): Vicki Herrera, Sarah Trotter, Roxanne Alter, and Bin Li. Photo: NPHL
from Iowa. The 30,000-square-foot
facility—which includes offices and
ancillary spaces, a BSL-3 containment
suite, a biological and chemical
terrorism preparedness laboratory and
multiple BSL-2 laboratories—takes up
a portion of the top floor of the eight-
story building, which opened in 2009.
Specimens enter the building through a
dedicated, ground-level receiving dock
or via courier services coordinated with
UNMC Regional Pathology Services.
Director
Iwen was reared 30 miles north of
Fargo, ND, in a farming community of
about 400 people. Although his father,
grandfather and great grandfather were
small-town “druggists,” he aspired to
study horticulture at North Dakota State
University (NDSU) in Fargo. His career
goals changed, however, when, as a
sophomore, he discovered the field of
microbiology. Iwen subsequently majored
in bacteriology, unfazed by having no
clear idea “what to do after graduation.”
Fortunately, a former NDSU advisor
connected him with a colleague at UNMC,
which led to Iwen and his wife to Omaha
in 1978, where he began his UNMC career
as a mycology researcher. Iwen soon
discovered that as a UNMC employee,
he could work full time to support
his growing family and take graduate
classes for free. This perk allowed him
to complete a master’s degree and work
in the hospital’s clinical microbiology
laboratory on weekends to obtain ASCP
microbiology certification. “The master’s
degree and certification allowed me
to move into a teaching position on
campus,” Iwen said, which was followed
by enrollment in the infectious diseases
doctoral program. He was awarded his
PhD at about the same time the events
around 9/11 unfolded, and Iwen was
soon tapped to serve as the university’s
first campus biosafety officer and
associate director of NPHL. When Hinrichs
segued from NPHL director to chair of
UNMC’s Department of Pathology and
Microbiology in 2009, Iwen took over the
empty post. He said, “Steve is my boss and
continues to provide unwavering support
for NPHL.” In addition to directing NPHL,
Iwen is a microbiology professor. At the
June annual meeting of the American
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