Lewandowski Receives 2024 Krehbiel Distinguished Staff Award from CVM

May 30, 2024

Ryan Lewandowski received the 2024 Krehbiel Distinguished Staff Award from the College of Veterinary Medicine. Lewandowski is the long-time manager of the Laboratory for Experimental and Toxicologic Pathology led by Drs. Jack Harkema and James Wagner. The Krehbiel Distinguished Staff Award, created by Dr. Janver and Mrs. Linda Krehbiel, is granted to a staff member who exemplifies excellence in overall job performance, and has outstanding interpersonal skills and working relationships that contribute to the overall climate, morale, and professionalism of their unit or department.

Thoughts from Dr. Jack Harkema:

Ryan has been an invaluable member of our laboratory and has contributed much to the overall success of our research program that involves primarily the study of respiratory pathology caused by the inhalation of xenobiotic agents such as environmental and occupational air pollutants (ozone, particulate matter, crystalline silica) and more recently SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus variants. For these federally funded, translational one-health research projects we have used a variety of laboratory mouse models of human/animal diseases such as asthma, acute/chronic respiratory disease syndromes (e.g., acute and long COVID-19), type 2 diabetes, and systemic lupus erythematosus. With his wide-ranging expertise and experience in biomedical and environmental laboratory technology, Ryan has been a vital team member of our CVM laboratory and has contributed much to the work of our collaborators within and outside of CVM and MSU.

 Besides handling routine laboratory operations such as ordering supplies and maintaining lab equipment, Ryan is responsible for four demanding technical work areas that include 1) operation and oversight of the CVM’s digital whole glass slide scanner (Olympus VS200 Virtual Research Slide Scanner), 2) processing respiratory tissue for quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) or bulk tissue RNA-sequence analysis,  3) logistical oversight, operation and management of CVM/MSU’s two mobile air research laboratories (AirCARE 1 and 2) for projects on campus and across the country (e.g., Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, California), and 4) inventorying and processing fixed lung tissues from numerous collaborators (e.g., MSU, UNC-Chapel Hill, NCSU, WVU) for microscopic digital imaging and quantitative (morphometric) analysis. In addition, Ryan has excellent technical writing skills and has contributed as a co-author to 22 peer-reviewed publications from our laboratory. Furthermore, he continues his education and is enrolled in the MSU graduate school’s Masters in Public Health program. He currently has a perfect 4.0 academic record.

Congratulations Ryan on this prestigious and well-deserved honor!