When Francie Rebolloso retired from MMI at the end of 2019, it was the end of an era.
Rebolloso worked in the Human Genetics Laboratory for 38 years (40 years total at UNMC after starting at the Eppley Institute in 1979) — but there was a time when she thought she wouldn’t be able to work at the laboratory at all.
In the 1990s, after working at the lab for 18 years, Rebolloso began noticing a problem with her eyesight. By 1999, the diagnosis had been confirmed. She had cone-rod dystrophy, a type of degenerative eye disorder that would eventually cause her become legally blind – and certainly make it impossible for her to continue working as a cytogenetic technologist, a job where she was required to examine chromosomes through a microscope.
Rebolloso recalled the meeting during which she broke the news to lab director Warren Sanger, Ph.D.
“I just started crying,” she said. “I had already been told I was going to go blind. I had already lost central vision in my right eye. My first thought when they told me was, ‘I’m going to lose my job. How am I going to support myself?'”
Fortunately, Dr. Sanger had the answer. Rebolloso was going to work at the Human Genetics Laboratory at MMI. She was going to work there as long as she wanted.
“He told me, ‘Don’t worry.’
“He told me, ‘You’ll always have a job here,'” Rebolloso said.
“And he kept his word.”
Rebolloso began working as an accession technician, logging samples into the lab’s computers, helping to decide what cultures were needed, and making any phone calls to clients if more information needed to be gathered. Then, she worked getting pre-authorizations. Finally, she answered the phone for the lab, serving as an informational outlet and point of first contact for clients.
Through it all, her colleagues were there for her.
“The genetics lab was the best working family I could have had,” she said. “I was in the lab for 38 years, and they would often give me rides home, sometimes pick me up in winter, and they were my eyes a lot of the time.”
After Dr. Sanger’s passing, lab directors Tanner Hagelstrom, Ph.D., and Jennifer Sanmann, Ph.D., kept Rebolloso in place as an integral part of the lab’s team.
“I’m really thankful to them,” Rebolloso said.
In addition to her work at MMI, Rebolloso held leadership positions in the Association of Genetic Technologists, often nominating her MMI co-workers for the group’s annual awards.
She also spearheaded the lab’s annual adoption of a J.P. Lord family, collecting donations throughout the year and making an extra push during the holidays.
“Francie truly loved giving more than receiving,” said Michelle Hess, lab manager. “And she deeply cared for children, whether the lab staff’s children or the J.P. Lord adopted class.”
Lab manager Diane Pickering called Rebolloso the heart of the Human Genetics Laboratory.
“She cared about us, and she truly cared about our patients,” she said.