Dr. Susan Monarez

And, um,

you know, the staff were traumatized.

I mean, they were in their offices as the bullets were hitting the windows, were trapped in their cars trying to get to their kids, and

you know, so I had, you know, three things that I had to get done.

The first is, you know, figure out law enforcement security, what was happening there.

The second is, you know, continuity of operations, you know, CDC was in the middle of making, you know, all these different operational activities.

And, you know, how do we, how do we get people, you know, to be able to continue the mission, which they all reinforced, you know, this is our mission first, but then also dealing with, you know, the individuals who, you know, although they,

you know, they, they were clearly wanting to make sure we got to a good place.

They were so traumatized and so devastated with what had happened that it was all, you know, that was a huge part of, you know, the next two weeks of just talking to staff and trying to understand, you know, what do we do and where do we go from, from there?

It was just, um, you know, just

Yeah, I mean, again, this goes back to my tremendous respect for what you have always been doing.

You've been, you know, you're such a deeply technical scientist, but you're an innovator and an entrepreneur and somebody who is just

you know, always thinking about how do we do things better?

And I wanted to surround myself.

So there is a, it's called the Advisory Committee to the Director, which is another federal advisory committee that is constituted to help give the CEC director, you know, external thoughts and advice across so many different domains.

And I wanted to have inspirational leaders like yourself helping me shape the future of public health.

And, you know, you had, I think you and I had connected, or maybe I had just been, you know, I think that was the first time that you and I talked, but I had been tracking your work directly or indirectly on, you know, biomarkers and how do you actually take what's happening in biomarker development and not just use it strictly in the longevity space, but how could you actually

democratize access to the same sets of biomarker panels and technology is to be able to much more broadly allow individuals to understand their wellness, whether it was through the public health labs at the States or whether it was, you know, broader accessibility in clinics and in hospitals.

And, but really, you know, what can we do to scale some of this really exciting work that's happening to

in a broader public health type domain.