An Interview with David Millington.

Abstract

David Millington was born under a lucky star. To hear him tell it, his life story consists of one serendipitous event after another. Certainly from a historical point of view, he has been at the right place at the right time. In 1941, just three years before he was born, the Americans George Beadle and Edward Tatum made a discovery that paved the way for the modern science of molecular biology. Mutating genes in Neurospora , a type of red bread mold, they were able to alter specific enzymes in the metabolic pathways of the mold, thereby confirming a hypothesis put forth in 1902 by the British physician Archibald Garrod that hereditary diseases are due to “inborn errors of metabolism.” This discovery was followed 20 years later—just as Millington was entering college—when the American microbiologist Robert Guthrie came up with the first blood test for phenylketonuria (PKU), which opened up the field of newborn screening. Millington wrote his own chapter in the tale in the late 1980s when he and colleagues had the idea to apply the cutting-edge technique of tandem mass spectrometry to the analysis of newborn blood samples. Their work—which has saved thousands of lives not just in North America but worldwide—revolutionized the field of newborn screening, turning it from a backwater into a scientific success story. In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control called newborn screening one of the great public health achievements of the past 10 years. Millington, who held the post of Medical Research Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Biochemical Genetics Laboratory at Duke University Medical Center, spoke with me from his office in early July. He had just retired after over 30 years of service. This is a great moment—you've just retired! Two days ago. After a long and illustrious career. I …