Director, Division of Laboratory Systems, Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services

Reynolds (Ren) M Salerno, PhD

Director

Division of Laboratory Systems (DLS)

Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services

Deputy Director Public Health Scientific Services

Ren Salerno is the director of the Division of Laboratory Systems at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). His division improves public health, patient outcomes, and health equity by advancing clinical and public health laboratory quality and safety, data and biorepository science, and workforce competency. He is the lead CDC official for the federal tri-agency Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) program, and the Designated Federal Official of the US Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee (CLIAC).

Dr. Salerno is CDC’s point of contact with FDA’s Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health, and CMS’ Division of Clinical Laboratory Improvement and Quality. He is responsible for CDC’s Memorandum of Understanding on Surge Testing during Public Health Emergencies. He oversees CDC’s cooperative agreement with the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL), and is CDC’s diagnostic and surveillance testing point of contact with APHL, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), and the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA). He has served as lead of CDC’s Expansion of Screening and Diagnostics Task Force for the COVID-19 Response, co-lead of CDC’s Laboratory and Testing Task Force for the COVID-19 Response, and senior advisor for laboratory and testing for CDC’s Monkeypox response. He represents CDC on the HHS Testing Coordination Group, the Tri-Agency Task Force for Emergency Diagnostics, and the Federal Interagency Working Group on Improving Diagnostic Safety and Quality in Healthcare.