Newborn Screening: from the Past to the Future

473 June 28, 2022, the second anniversary of International Newborn Screening Day was celebrated despite ongoing negative impact of Covid-19 pandemic.1 June 28, originally dates back to the birthday of Dr. Robert Guthrie (June 28, 1916). Dr. Guthrie was a microbiologist who, as the father of a mentally retarded child and uncle of a niece with PKU, dedicated his life to raising awareness of the need for newborn screening for treatable diseases after introducing a new bacterial inhibition test using dried blood spots on filter paper cards to screen newborns for phenylketonuria.