C section page 1 Aug. 12, 2015 Brian Bird Feature
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Lexington, TN. Progress, Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - Page 1C Brian Bird Battles Ebola in Africa ~Lexington Native Works with Center for Disease Control to Eradicate Life-Threatening Diseases~ By Katie Faulkner / The Lexington Progress / [email protected] Lexington native, Bri- an Bird, is an adventurer working in the field of med- ical laboratory research. He has traveled the world, and worked in some of the most dangerous and challeng- ing settings a laboratorian might ever find themselves a part of. He holds a PHD, has volunteered for the Peace Corps, and has been stationed all across Africa to study and help eradicate some of the most deadly and infectious diseases hu- man-kind has ever faced. From childhood curiosi- ty on his family’s farm in Rock Springs to obtaining his PHD in Comparative Pathology, Brian has long shown interest in the study of health. More specifically, viruses, have held his fas- cination for years. “When I was a kid, back when I went to Caywood, we lived on a farm, and I was always really interested in what made the animals sick,” Bri- an recalls. The family farm was located in Rock Springs and his parents, Allie and Cade Bird, also owned the Livestock Auction in Law- renceburg. His sister, Mary, now runs that auction and his grandfather, Guy Walk- er was instrumental in re- storing another local cattle trade. As a result Brian grew up immersed in a hands-on, biologically infused setting. Since graduating Lexing- ton High School in 1994, Brian, now 39 years old, completed his undergradu- ate and Master’s degrees at John Hopkins University in Baltimore. He ended up fin- ishing his PHD at Califor- nia Davis University which is a major research uni- versity located just west of Sacramento. In between his Masters and his PHD Bri- an joined the Peace Corps for a couple of years where he traveled to Kazakhstan. He tags this as his first real you’re trying to translate complicated medical jargon. “A ‘virus’ might not even be a concrete idea in their lan- guage, so yes, it can be very challenging,” he explains. For the last ten years Bri- an has been associated with the Center for Disease Con- trol (CDC) and joined them as a full time employee back around 2009. Since joining their team, Brian has been deployed numerous times to Uganda, Kenya, South Afri- ca, Tanzania, the Democrat- ic Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone. His wife of ten years, Sarah, maintains their homestead in Atlanta and has a private veterinar- ian practice. When asked if the sometimes dangerous work environment and long distance travel bothered her, Brian replied that Sar- ah is “very understanding and supportive. She be- lieves the work I’m doing is important.” He added with a laugh that his mother and sister are actually probably much more vocal with their concerns for him than Sarah is. The work Brian does can be seen as extreme on both sides of the coin – that is, it is extremely challenging, but also equally rewarding. Brian’s most recent deploy- ment, back in August was related to a massive Ebola outbreak in March 2013. Brian Bird, far right, stands with his team in front of their temporary lab in Sierra Leone. Brian served as the Team Lead during this deployment. Photo courtesy of the CDC, Atlanta This is an example of some of the temporary laboratories that Brian has worked in. This particular lab is located in Liberia. Photo courtesy of the CDC This suit is an example of the Personal Protective Equipment or PPE, that Brian and his team must wear in labs that reach temperatures of 95 degrees plus. Photo courtesy of the CDC “We’ve had syringes with needles on them stuck in these containers, samples in coffee pots and glass jars. It’s quite impressive, and a challenge.” - Brian Bird on the challenges of lab life in Sierra Leone “I work to find synergies be- tween field and laboratory work.” - Brian Bird Since the initial outbreak in March Brian has been de- ployed to Sierra Leone three times. Deployments usu- ally last about thirty days due to the severe conditions that the laboratorians work under. In Brian’s case, he field work, having spent his time there teaching local health professionals and students about disease pre- vention. While most of the places he’s traveled to in Africa have primarily spo- ken English, Russian is the native language of Kazakh- stan. Also, several countries he’s visited in Africa are former French colonies. “My French isn’t that great,” he jokes. And he assures, lan- guage barriers prove to be even more challenging when worked as Team Lead of a six person crew in a temporari- ly established testing cen- ter. He and his team could receive almost 200 samples some days that were in need of testing. And of course, the team’s goal is to produce the fastest turn-around times possible on test results, as they’re essentially holding peoples’ lives in their hands. A person with Ebola-type symptoms will be quaran- tined, and the sooner a test can rule in or out Ebola, the sooner life-saving treat- ment can begin to be ad- ministered. Without these temporary testing centers, clinicians would have to send samples as far as from Sierra Leone in Africa to At- lanta, Georgia here in the States. That meant days, sometimes weeks before test results could be confirmed. Brian’s lab was turning around re- sults in as little as two or three hours in severe cases. They average a 12-24 hour turn-around time but, “if the need is pressing we can have results in a few hours,” he explains. These accomplishments sound impressive already, but wait until you realize the conditions these lab teams work under. Imagine being stationed in a temporary lab where you work with all the clinics from miles around. Their methods aren’t al- ways the most sophisticat- ed. In fact, Brian explained in an interview with the CDC that “We’ve had sy- ringes with needles on them stuck in these containers, samples in coffee pots, and glass jars. It’s quite impres- sive, and a challenge.” Due to improper labeling and confused communication between the lab and clinics, it can take a lot of work to get the results back to the right location. And during testing, or any handling of the samples, lab technicians have to wear Personal Pro- tective Equipment (PPE). Think Breaking Bad meets E.T. These suits are layers and layers of un-breathable, heavy-duty fabric including headgear, all which have to be worn in their un-air-con- ditioned labs in tempera- tures averaging 95 degrees. “That’s probably the great- est physical challenge we face,” Brian says. “It’s kind of like getting used to the heat in the first days of sum- mer. We have to train our bodies for it.” He says they carry out extensive training in full PPE in hot rooms at the CDC’s Atlanta location before deployments. “We also try to limit anyone’s time in the hot lab to two or three hours. It’s just too hot otherwise,” he explains. During “outbreak” deploy- ments Brian says that the atmosphere is just more in- tense, and the majority of their time is taken up trying to produce the most lab re- sults possible. But he’s also been on trips that are more focused on the study of these diseases. During these trips are when he says they get to have a little more free time and experience the culture more. “We get to spend time with our African colleagues or our drivers. Sometimes they’ll invite us to their house for dinner or out to a restaurant in town. So yeah, we get to experience the food and the culture.” Part of the rewards of the job, as Brian explains, is getting to see the human impact their work makes. He also seems to enjoy working in the field when he gets to test and study animals. He spends a great deal of time researching how the diseas- es originate and are spread. They’ve discovered that Eb- ola, and sister strands such as Marburg virus start with fruit bats whose feces con- taminate fruit. That fruit is either then eaten directly by humans, or by animals that are then consumed by hu- mans. In this chain of con- tamination, once it reaches the human population it can spread devastatingly fast. Brian and his teams work to educate locals about the dangers of eating unclean meat from unknown sourc- es, as well as about how to control outbreaks. He says Lab workers often have to take extra precautions when handling paperwork and specimens. Here, workers use a bleach solution to sterilize documents. Photo courtesy CDC he enjoys the teaching and human interaction as well as the concentrated lab work. “I work to find synergies be- tween field and laboratory “My mom and my sister are still there,” he explained. And it was the source of his first scientific ponderings. He dejectedly talked about work,” he muses, discussing how he is equally intrigued by the scientific discovery as well as the helping oth- er people aspects of his job. Throughout his world trav- els and twenty-five some odd years of school, he still thinks of Lexington fondly. how he had to miss his 20th High School Reunion due a deployment. “Shout-out to Lexington and West Ten- nessee! It’s a great place to grow up,” he finished, “I vis- it two or three times a year. It’s still home you know?”
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Transcript of C section page 1 Aug. 12, 2015 Brian Bird Feature
Lexington, TN. Progress, Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - Page 1C
Brian Bird Battles Ebola in Africa~Lexington Native Works with Center for Disease Control to Eradicate Life-Threatening Diseases~
By Katie Faulkner / The Lexington Progress / [email protected]
Lexington native, Bri-an Bird, is an adventurer working in the field of med-ical laboratory research. He has traveled the world, and worked in some of the most dangerous and challeng-ing settings a laboratorian might ever find themselves a part of. He holds a PHD, has volunteered for the Peace Corps, and has been stationed all across Africa to study and help eradicate some of the most deadly and infectious diseases hu-man-kind has ever faced.
From childhood curiosi-ty on his family’s farm in Rock Springs to obtaining his PHD in Comparative Pathology, Brian has long shown interest in the study of health. More specifically, viruses, have held his fas-cination for years. “When I was a kid, back when I went to Caywood, we lived on a farm, and I was always really interested in what made the animals sick,” Bri-an recalls. The family farm was located in Rock Springs and his parents, Allie and Cade Bird, also owned the Livestock Auction in Law-renceburg. His sister, Mary, now runs that auction and his grandfather, Guy Walk-er was instrumental in re-storing another local cattle trade. As a result Brian grew up immersed in a hands-on, biologically infused setting.
Since graduating Lexing-ton High School in 1994, Brian, now 39 years old, completed his undergradu-ate and Master’s degrees at John Hopkins University in Baltimore. He ended up fin-ishing his PHD at Califor-nia Davis University which is a major research uni-versity located just west of Sacramento. In between his Masters and his PHD Bri-an joined the Peace Corps for a couple of years where he traveled to Kazakhstan. He tags this as his first real
you’re trying to translate complicated medical jargon. “A ‘virus’ might not even be a concrete idea in their lan-guage, so yes, it can be very challenging,” he explains.
For the last ten years Bri-an has been associated with the Center for Disease Con-trol (CDC) and joined them as a full time employee back around 2009. Since joining their team, Brian has been deployed numerous times to Uganda, Kenya, South Afri-ca, Tanzania, the Democrat-ic Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone. His wife of ten years, Sarah, maintains their homestead in Atlanta and has a private veterinar-ian practice. When asked if the sometimes dangerous work environment and long distance travel bothered her, Brian replied that Sar-ah is “very understanding and supportive. She be-lieves the work I’m doing is important.” He added with a laugh that his mother and sister are actually probably much more vocal with their concerns for him than Sarah is.
The work Brian does can be seen as extreme on both sides of the coin – that is, it is extremely challenging, but also equally rewarding. Brian’s most recent deploy-ment, back in August was related to a massive Ebola outbreak in March 2013.
Brian Bird, far right, stands with his team in front of their temporary lab in Sierra Leone. Brian served as the Team Lead during this deployment. Photo courtesy of the CDC, Atlanta
This is an example of some of the temporary laboratories that Brian has worked in. This particular lab is located in Liberia. Photo courtesy of the CDC
This suit is an example of the Personal Protective Equipment or PPE, that Brian and his team must wear in labs that reach temperatures of 95 degrees plus. Photo courtesy of the CDC
“We’ve had syringes with needles on them stuck in these containers, samples in coffee pots and glass jars. It’s quite impressive, and a challenge.” - Brian Bird on the challenges of lab life in Sierra Leone
“I work to find synergies be-tween field and laboratory work.” - Brian Bird
Since the initial outbreak in March Brian has been de-ployed to Sierra Leone three times. Deployments usu-ally last about thirty days due to the severe conditions that the laboratorians work under. In Brian’s case, he
field work, having spent his time there teaching local health professionals and students about disease pre-vention. While most of the places he’s traveled to in Africa have primarily spo-ken English, Russian is the native language of Kazakh-stan. Also, several countries he’s visited in Africa are former French colonies. “My French isn’t that great,” he jokes. And he assures, lan-guage barriers prove to be even more challenging when
worked as Team Lead of a six person crew in a temporari-ly established testing cen-ter. He and his team could receive almost 200 samples some days that were in need of testing. And of course, the team’s goal is to produce the fastest turn-around times possible on test results, as they’re essentially holding peoples’ lives in their hands. A person with Ebola-type symptoms will be quaran-tined, and the sooner a test can rule in or out Ebola,
the sooner life-saving treat-ment can begin to be ad-ministered. Without these temporary testing centers, clinicians would have to send samples as far as from Sierra Leone in Africa to At-lanta, Georgia here in the States. That meant days, sometimes
weeks before test results could be confirmed. Brian’s lab was turning around re-sults in as little as two or three hours in severe cases. They average a 12-24 hour turn-around time but, “if the need is pressing we can have results in a few hours,” he explains.
These accomplishments sound impressive already, but wait until you realize the conditions these lab teams work under. Imagine being stationed in a temporary lab where you work with all the clinics from miles around. Their methods aren’t al-ways the most sophisticat-ed. In fact, Brian explained in an interview with the CDC that “We’ve had sy-ringes with needles on them stuck in these containers, samples in coffee pots, and glass jars. It’s quite impres-sive, and a challenge.” Due to improper labeling and confused communication between the lab and clinics, it can take a lot of work to get the results back to the right location. And during testing, or any handling of the samples, lab technicians have to wear Personal Pro-tective Equipment (PPE). Think Breaking Bad meets E.T. These suits are layers and layers of un-breathable, heavy-duty fabric including headgear, all which have to be worn in their un-air-con-ditioned labs in tempera-tures averaging 95 degrees. “That’s probably the great-est physical challenge we face,” Brian says. “It’s kind of like getting used to the heat in the first days of sum-mer. We have to train our bodies for it.” He says they carry out extensive training in full PPE in hot rooms at the CDC’s Atlanta location before deployments. “We also try to limit anyone’s time in the hot lab to two or three hours. It’s just too hot otherwise,” he explains.
During “outbreak” deploy-
ments Brian says that the atmosphere is just more in-tense, and the majority of their time is taken up trying to produce the most lab re-sults possible. But he’s also been on trips that are more focused on the study of these diseases. During these trips are when he says they get to
have a little more free time and experience the culture more. “We get to spend time with our African colleagues or our drivers. Sometimes they’ll invite us to their house for dinner or out to a restaurant in town. So yeah, we get to experience the food and the culture.” Part of the rewards of the job, as Brian explains, is getting to see the human impact their work makes. He also seems to enjoy working in the field when he gets to test and study animals. He spends a great deal of time researching how the diseas-es originate and are spread. They’ve discovered that Eb-ola, and sister strands such as Marburg virus start with fruit bats whose feces con-taminate fruit. That fruit is either then eaten directly by humans, or by animals that are then consumed by hu-mans. In this chain of con-tamination, once it reaches the human population it can spread devastatingly fast. Brian and his teams work to educate locals about the dangers of eating unclean meat from unknown sourc-es, as well as about how to control outbreaks. He says
Lab workers often have to take extra precautions when handling paperwork and specimens. Here, workers use a bleach solution to sterilize documents.
Photo courtesy CDChe enjoys the teaching and human interaction as well as the concentrated lab work. “I work to find synergies be-tween field and laboratory
“My mom and my sister are still there,” he explained. And it was the source of his first scientific ponderings. He dejectedly talked about
work,” he muses, discussing how he is equally intrigued by the scientific discovery as well as the helping oth-er people aspects of his job. Throughout his world trav-els and twenty-five some odd years of school, he still thinks of Lexington fondly.
how he had to miss his 20th High School Reunion due a deployment. “Shout-out to Lexington and West Ten-nessee! It’s a great place to grow up,” he finished, “I vis-it two or three times a year. It’s still home you know?”
