On the Front Line of Public Health

Robert L. Jones

When the public's health is in danger, Robert L. Jones (B.S. '77, M.S. '79, Ph.D. '86) and the Centers for Disease Control are there. For the centers to do their jobs, they need science - not just epidemiology, but an army of laboratory scientists developing cutting-edge methods for detecting a wide range of threats.

Jones is one of the people responsible for keeping that science up to date. He started his career as a research chemist after being the first student ever to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry from Georgia State. Today, he is chief of the CDC's Inorganic and Radiation Analytical Toxicology Branch.

One of his proudest moments was heading the project team that developed the world's first portable instrument for measuring lead in blood samples. The instrument has been a big hit in America, where doctors use it to test their patients, avoiding the time and expense of external laboratories.

The tester has been even more valuable overseas, where facilities are few and far between and keeping blood samples fresh on their journey to the lab can be difficult or impossible.

"We've taken the portable lead instrument to Russia, to Egypt," Jones said. "One of our staff members jumped off a boat in Micronesia, waded up onto an island, and found a lead contamination problem no one even suspected."

More recently, Jones and his division have been working on possible terrorist threats. One group is developing methods for quickly assessing whether a patient has been exposed to radioactive material, and how severely. Another group is working on methods for use in cases of chemical terrorism, where the attacks might involve poisons like arsenic or mercury.

"I know our lab work can benefit hundreds of thousands of people," Jones said. "I get great pleasure and fulfillment from that."