Wava Truscott

Wava Truscott , PhD. MBA, is founder and president of Truscott MedSci Associates, a consulting company addressing current concerns in healthcare including infection prevention, improved patient outcomes, and staff risk reduction. Development of accredited educational courses, speaking engagements, topic research, writing articles, and assisting with experimental design are core competencies. She is an international lecturer having presented in 17 countries and has written over 90 articles and 7 book chapters.

Dr. Truscott received her doctorate from the University of California at Davis (UCD) in Comparative Pathology with major emphasis in Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology. Her dissertation: Demonstration and Partial Characterization of a Cell-bound Leukotoxin Isolated from Pasteurella multocida of Avian Origin, and demonstrated the pathogenic effects on mononuclear phagocytic cell function. Performed preliminary studies to evaluate efficacy as a subunit vaccine. Separately, she isolated and characterized a new P. multocida bacteriophage. Its fowl cholera pathogen-specific receptors were run on a unique potato starch "gel", renatured and on immunoblots of outer membrane proteins sufficiently to receive viral attachments (I125 labelled detection). Her MBA is from the University of La Verne and her BS from Brigham Young University in Botany and Zoology. (BYU).

Formerly, Truscott was the Director of Medical Sciences and Clinical Education for Kimberly-Clark Health Care. She is the founder of Kimberly-Clark's Knowledge Network* - a dynamic collection of educational resources designed to provide insight and information to healthcare professionals. Prior to Kimberly-Clark, she was Vice President and co-founder of Safe Life Corporation, an antimicrobial-based technology enterprise; Vice President of Safe Skin Corporation, a glove development and manufacturing company; and Director of Regulatory and Consumer Affairs, as well as Divisional Biological Laboratories' Manager for the Pharmaseal Division of Baxter Healthcare. Before receiving her doctorate, Wava was a lab technician and then supervisor at Microbiological Development and Control ("MIDECO," now Nelson Laboratories), Laboratory Instructor at both BYU and UCD. At UC Davis, Wava was a laboratory assistant in laboratory courses on human microbiology, separated enzymes, proteins, and DNA in the veterinary laboratory, and worked on bacteriophage vs. host studies.

Truscott served as a volunteer at the Gardner HIV Clinic at UCD and as a Certified Hospital Aide in several military hospitals as well as and a long term care facility during and after the Vietnam War. She co-authored the Microbiological section of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) Sterilization and Recommended Practices. Dr. Truscott co-chaired the Health Industry Manufacturer’s Association (HIMA: now AdvaMed) Latex Sensitivity Task Force, and was appointed the U.S. delegate to the International Standards Organization on Biocompatibility Testing of Medical Devices regarding Systemic Toxicity (ISO 10993-11) for several years as the European Union was forming. Dr Truscott has been very active in the study of biological consequences of allergic reactions to natural rubber latex proteins, the complications of glove powder and lint in surgical wounds, the unrecognized sources of endotoxin introduced during surgery, and in the development of test methods and standards for a number of medical devices through ASTM International.

She authored an extensive petition to the FDA presenting in-depth reasoning for the ban of all powdered gloves in healthcare facilities, which has finally become an FDA Ban on all Powdered gloves in all healthcare facilities. As part of her efforts to prevent healthcare-associated infections, Dr. Truscott is currently working on the ASTM task force charged with developing test methods to assess the efficacy of antimicrobial-incorporated medical gloves. Curriculum vitae available on request.