Good News on the work front ....

Well - not on my side but on Laura's side.

Laura has spent the last few years working on a test for detecting the Human Papillomavirus. This is not any old test but is one that is designed to address the needs in less developed countries. She has told me stories of doctors literally parachuting and kayaking in to villages in Africa to treat women. Well this test is designed to be portable, not require advanced training to operate, provide rapid results and to allow detection and treatment. To give you an idea of the operational ease, in a trial in rural China, all the women in the village were screened and tested by one of the farmer's daughters after she was taught to use the test. The goal is to reduce the cases of cervical cancer in women in these countries where prevention, detection and treatment is a rarity. An article, earlier this year, in the New England Journal of Medicine expected that the use of this test would cut cervical cancer deaths, often the leading cause of death, in half in the developing world saving hundreds of thousands of women a year.

The work is hard but some days she gets to see the rewards and last week had one of those days. PATH, www.path.org, is an organization that Laura works with. Her program has some funding through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and if all goes as planned will be the first product that becomes available based on funding from the foundation. Last week the Gates wanted to see the test in action so PATH demonstrated the test to them in Seattle. As you can imagine this was a big thing for Laura and her team - and something to be VERY proud of.

Sometimes the rewards are more personal. The women in Haiti sent Laura a carved "Tree of Life" in appreciation of the work done in Haiti where the screenings were the first ones they had ever had. It is made from steel from oil barrels that are pounded out and then carved and now hangs beautifully over the fireplace.

Today was another big day for the team as well as her company, Qiagen and Merck announced a joint initiative to provide HPV vaccines and HPV testing for the world's poorest countries. This is yet another big step in beginning to reduce the threat of cervical cancer to women in developing countries.

If you cannot already tell I think the work that she is doing is more than admirable and I know I have lots of reasons to be proud of her but this adds one more to the big bag of reasons. Congratulations Laura!

OK - I need to get back to work - I have been trying to find a few minutes to get this post out in my hectic schedule.

.... cu