Romesh Gautom, M.S., Ph.D.
In February, 2001, Dr. Gautom became the Director of the Washington State Public Health Laboratories (PHL).
Previously, Dr. Gautom had served as Office Director of the Public Health Microbiology Section at the PHL
and as a Molecular Epidemiologist, managing the PHL's Molecular Methods Development Laboratory. He
joined the PHL in 1996 after completing his post-doctoral fellowships in the Department of Laboratory
Medicine at the University of Washington Medical Center. He also served as a Senior Fellow in Clinical and
Public Health Medical Microbiology in that department for several years.
Dr. Gautom brings considerable technical experience in this role. At the PHL he has established a strong track
record for developing innovative new methods to investigate diseases of public health interest. Of particular value
has been a new rapid DNA fingerprinting procedure based on Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis. This procedure allows
specific identification of strains of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and a variety of other infectious disease agents within 24 hours,
and has formed the backbone of the national PulseNet system, operated by the Centers for Disease Control to track national
foodborne disease outbreaks.
In accepting the position of PHL Director, Dr. Gautom emphasized his personal goal of “making a significant improvement
in people’s lives by developing methodologies directed towards lessening the burden of diseases that plague our world.”
In keeping with this goal, he has already established an aggressive methodology development program at the PHL, some of which includes
the development of DNA fingerprint libraries for a large number of infectious disease agents, Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH),
which provides rapid and cost-effective detection of pathogens, biomonitoring, etc.
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