Last Tuesday, the LNS had the pleasure to welcome Etienne Schneider, Minister of Health, for a guided tour of the two National Centers of Genetics and Pathology as well as the Analytical Toxicology Technical Platform – Pharmaceutical Chemistry of the Department of Forensic Medicine.

For the Minister, accompanied by Mrs Anne Calteux, first government adviser, and Dr Françoise Berthet, deputy director of the Direction de la Santé, it was the first time he came to Dudelange. After a brief welcome by Mrs Simone Niclou, President of the Board, and Prof. Dr Friedrich Mühlschlegel, Director, the visit began on the ground floor with the new patient reception and genetic counselling areas before continuing on the fifth floor to discover the sequencing facilities of the National Center of Genetics (NCG). Mr. Schneider, very interested in the subject of heredity and cancer risk, asked Dr Barbara Klink, geneticist and head of the NCG, many questions and she gave him the necessary explanations.

The second stage of the visit took place at the National Center of Pathology (NCP) with a very interesting discussion between the Minister and his team and the LNS team around Prof. Dr Michel Mittelbronn, neuropathologist and head of the NCP. It was a profound and fruitful exchange around past and future challenges, the mission and scope of the NCP but also of the LNS as an engine of innovation.

The rest of the program was a brief visit to the laboratory of the Analytical Toxicology Technical Platform – Pharmaceutical Chemistry where Serge Schneider PhD and his team had the opportunity to explain and show Mr. Schneider how THC’s analyses work and to answer questions about the scope and expansion possibilities of these activities.

The Minister’s visit ended with a brief meeting with Mrs Niclou and Prof. Dr Mühlschlegel during which the central role of the LNS as a whole, its diversity and its impact as a central laboratory were discussed.

It was a short but intense visit, allowing to the LNS to demonstrate to the Minister of Health its professional expertise and its ambition to be a catalyst for innovation to take public health to the next level!