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Superfund Basic Research Program

September 15, 2008 New

SBRP-alumnae, Anne Spuches, Ph.D., Presents Research Results on Arsenic Toxicity

Dr. Anne M. Spuches

Former SBRP Dartmouth graduate student and Wetterhahn awardee, (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/s brp/training/training6.cfm) Dr. Anne M. Spuches, (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/s brp/training/training6_s7.cfm) will be presenting her current research at the NIEHS weekly environmental health science series, Frontiers in Environmental Science. Currently, Dr. Spuches is not only an assistant professor at East Carolina University's Department of Chemistry, but also manages her laboratory, while conducting research focused on arsenic toxicity. Dr. Spuches' September 19, 2008 lecture (10 am), "Mechanisms of Arsenic Toxicity: A Thermodynamic and Spectroscopic Investigation of Arsenite and Monomethylarsenite Binding to Small Thiols and the DNA Binding Domain of Glucocorticoid Receptor," will be hosted by Dr. William Suk, M.P.H., at the NIEHS Rodbell Conference Center, Building 101.

Recently, Dr. Spuches' research showed that MMA is capable of displacing zinc from the DNA binding domain of the Glucocorticoid receptor, while inorganic arsenite causes no change. These results correlate to studies that show that MMA is more potent and toxic than inorganic arsenic. Her Dartmouth College colleagues, who are SBRP-funded, are also working on the full length protein, and have identified the same result as seen in Spuches work. In the future, Dr. Spuches hopes to learn why MMA is so potent.

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September 10, 2008 New

UK SBRP Director Receives Fulbright Award (http://www.uky.edu/Research/Superfund/News/He nnigFulbright0908.html) Exit NIEHS Website

Dr. Bernhard Hennig

The University of Kentucky's SBRP Program Director, Bernhard Hennig (http://tools.niehs.nih.gov/sbrp/people/detail s.cfm?Person_ID=4366&searchTerm=hennig) , Ph.D., received a Fulbright Award to encourage collaborations between the University of Kentucky and the Universidad de Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia.

This upcoming spring (2009), Dr. Hennig will spend four months in Columbia teaching a nutritional biochemistry course and sharing his research expertise. He hopes this will be the start of an official exchange program between the academic units of the two universities.

Currently, Dr. Hennig is a professor of nutrition and toxicology in the UK College of Agriculture's Department of Animal and Food Sciences; he has joint appointments in the Center for Nutritional Sciences, the Graduate Center for Toxicology, the Center for Membrane Sciences, and the Gill Heart Institute. Dr. Hennig serves as the primary investigator for the SBRP Project, Superfund Chemicals, Nutrition, and Endothelial Cell Dysfunction, which focuses on the utilization of tissue culture model systems in the study of nutrition and atherosclerosis. His research emphasizes the role of nutrients on biochemical and molecular mechanisms of vascular endothelial cell function, injury, and protection

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August 27, 2008

Dartmouth Workshop Sets Research Agenda for Environmental Mercury

In November 2006, members of Dartmouth's Toxic Metals Research Program convened a group of 43 scientists to set research priorities and a biomonitoring agenda related to how mercury moves through the marine ecosystem and into the fish that we eat.

The workshop, "Fate and Bioavailability of Mercury in Aquatic Ecosystem and Effects on Human Exposure (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/events/pastmtg/ 2006/mercury/index.cfm) ", took place in Durham, NH, with funding provided by the NIEHS SBRP and support from the New Hampshire SeaGrant Program. The workshop focused on three major themes:

  1. the biogeochemical cycling of mercury in marine ecosystems;
  2. the mechanisms of mercury transfer in the food web; and
  3. the risk of human exposure of mercury from seafood and shell fish consumption.

This month (August 2008), co-authors Celia Chen, research associate professor of biology at Dartmouth, and Nancy Serrell, director of outreach at Dartmouth, released the research agenda from the 2006 workshop, in the current online issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, "Methylmercury in Marine Ecosystems: From Sources to Seafood Consumers - A Work Group Report (http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2008/11211/abst ract.html) Exit NIEHS Website".

Future efforts related to the accumulation of mercury in the environment include convening workshops to compile and evaluate existing mercury data in marine environments and seafood.

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August 20, 2008

Louisiana State University (LSU) SBRP Chemist Isolates Air Pollutants

Dr. Barry Dellinger

Louisiana State University (LSU) SBRP grantee and environmental chemistry professor, Barry Dellinger, Ph.D., received the prestigious Astellas USA Foundation Award for his scientific contributions related to improving public health research. The award was presented to Dr. Dellinger at the Presidential Symposium of the 236th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content ?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_TRANSITIONMAIN&node _id=859&use_sec=false&sec_url_var=region1) Exit NIEHS Website (ACS) in Philadelphia, PA.

Dr. Dellinger also presented his research on "environmentally persistent free radicals" (PFRs) at the ACS meeting. His research presentation explained how PFRs are pollutants in the form of microscopic particles that are released into the atmosphere from any flame-producing chemical reaction. Due to the environmental effects of combustion, Dellinger believes that this study could potentially demonstrate why so many non-smokers get lung cancer and other pulmonary diseases. More research is needed before such cancer cases can be linked to PFRs. Evidence thus far depicts that 500,000 Americans die each year from cardiopulmonary illnesses related to 'fine particle air pollution.'

Dr. Dellinger emphasized that health risks related to PFRs do not necessarily come from chemicals, but rather from PFRs formed during the chemical combustion processes. PFRs are formed during any combustion process, for example, the burning of coal, fuel power plants, and wood.

Scientists used to believe that PFRs quickly died (in a matter of microseconds), but Dellinger's research shows that many of these pollutants can live for days following combustion, and some survive indefinitely (hence the name "persistent free radicals").

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August 20, 2008

Boston University's (BU) SBRP Promotes Information Sharing and Collaboration

The BU SBRP supports the notion that scientific knowledge and tools produced by public programs (such as theirs) should be freely available and accessible. In an effort to stimulate collaborative efforts, and increase the accessibility of research tools, BU's SBRP Research Translation Core (RTC) now provides a list of lab reagents and tools (http://busbrp.org/bu-sbrp-laboratory-reagents -and-tools.html) Exit NIEHS Website developed by researchers via open source wiki software. The use of wiki software fortifies BU's stance on the subject of Open Science (http://www.busbrp.org/openscience.html) Exit NIEHS Website. The RTC hopes the new technologies will result in further scientific findings, analytical tools, data, and the development of more research methods.

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August 18, 2008

University of Kentucky Professor Haining Zhu Wins Prestigious Maciag Award (http://www.mpi-evv.com/2008idea/fptemplate/re searchpath/Maciag_Award.htm) Exit NIEHS Website

Dr. Haining Zhu

Dr. Haining Zhu (http://www.mc.uky.edu/biochemistry/dept_perso nnel/faculty/zhu.asp) Exit NIEHS Website, associate professor of molecular and cellular biochemistry and a co-leader of the UK-SBRP Research Support Core, has received the prestigious Maciag Award from the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Research Resources. Zhu received this honor in recognition of his many research accomplishments and for his exceptional ability to mentor young scientists.

The Maciag award is dedicated to the memory of Thomas Maciag, an internationally recognized cell and vascular biologist. Dr. Maciag was an innovative scientist, artist, outstanding mentor to young investigators, and an excellent educator of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. The intent of this award is to recognize individuals who exemplify Dr. Maciag's ideals of research excellence and innovation and his commitment to mentoring new scientists. Dr. Zhu will present his research at a special session of the National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research (NISBRE) (http://www.mpi-evv.com/2008idea/fptemplate/re searchpath/default.htm) Exit NIEHS Website.

For more information on Dr. Zhu and the Maciag Award please refer to the University of Kentucky Superfund Basic Research Program webpage (http://www.uky.edu/Research/Superfund/News/Zh u08_08.html) Exit NIEHS Website.

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August 13, 2008

Brown University Professor Featured in Discover Magazine

Dr. Phil Brown

Phil Brown, Ph.D., is a leading sociologist in environmental health, a member of Brown University's (BU) Superfund Basic Research Program (SBRP) Community Outreach (COC) and Research Translation Cores (RTC), and BU professor of medical and environmental sociology. The August (2008) issue of Discover Magazine highlights Brown's contributions as the man who not only coined the term "popular epidemiology," but also continues to raise awareness of environmental contamination in low-income communities.

Brown's work focuses on environmental disasters that impact low-income communities, these disasters are typically defined by the neighborhood's long-term health problems, which are inherently caused by toxins. Brown's advocacy for contaminated communities began in Woburn, MA (1984); his efforts continue today, as he perseveres in his efforts to "champion collaborative action(s) between impacted citizens and the scientific community" (Kaplan).

Following Brown's experience in Woburn, his academic concentration shifted from mental health to instructing more interdisciplinary classes that focus on medical and environmental sociology, environmental justice, and contested illnesses. Today, Brown continues to lecture at BU, and also assists environmentally impacted communities in the role of advocate or scientist, as needed. Brown is able to utilize his knowledge of political science, toxicology, epidemiology, and sociology, as he applies it to each individual community.

More information on Brown's work and influence, The Lifesaving Work of the Man Behind 'A Civil Action' (http://discovermagazine.com/2008/aug/29-the-l ifesaving-work-of-the-man-behind-a-civil-acti on) Exit NIEHS Website is available in the August edition of Discover Magazine, along with current biographical and project data, COC and RTC, on the SBRP web site.

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August 11, 2008

University of Kentucky (UK) SBRP Researcher to Join EPA IRIS Team

Dr. Xabier Arzuaga

Xabier Arzuaga, Ph.D., UK SBRP graduate and postdoctoral fellow of Bernhard Hennig's (Ph.D.) Lab, will be joining the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (US EPA) Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) team in Arlington, Virginia.

In his new position, Arzuaga will be responsible for the development of multiple concurrent health assessments, while advising EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA), Office of Research and Development's (ORD) staff about scientific issues related to health assessment. The IRIS database contains information on human health effects that may result from exposure to various environmental substances; the system's goal is directed toward individuals who may not have extensive toxicology training, but some knowledge of health science(s).

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July 28, 2008

UA SBRP Receives US EPA Pollution Prevention Grant

Eric Betterton, Ph.D., Ms. Denise Moreno-Ramirez, and Ms. Monica Ramirez, UA SBRP, in collaboration with Ms. Ann Marie Wolf, Sonora Environmental Research Institute, Inc. (SERI), recently received a US EPA Pollution Prevention (P2) grant. The purpose of the P2 is to help reduce the amount of hazardous substances entering the environment, conserve energy and water, and improve the community's environmental health.

The UA SBRP Project Coordinators for the Research Translation and Community Outreach Cores (RTC/COC) see this grant as a product and confirmation of their Outreach diligence. With SBRP funding, both UA's SBRP and the Binational Center programs were able to build trust with the promotoras (health outreach workers), and support initial nurturing and partnership building with SERI and CASA.

Project Coordinator, Monica Ramirez, stated: "Our goal is to effectively communicate the science generated from the UA SBRP and Binational Center. We are now partners with strong conduits in the community who are disseminating and utilizing the science of our program to educate others...[We] are building upon a foundation that we have built with the community, which is crucial to carry out the goals of RTC/COC."

SERI and the UA SBRP will use the P2 to continue developing the Community Assist of Southern Arizona (CASA), emphasizing a P2 program for businesses. UA's SBRP has been instrumental in CASA's development; they have served on the advisory board, provided toxicology and environmental science training for promotoras, and technical expertise.

With the P2 grant, the UA SBRP will:

  • provide training for promotoras, so that they can effectively communicate pollution prevention and source reduction strategies to business sectors;
  • assist in eight workshops that focus on industry-specific source reduction methods;
  • help eliminate barriers to implement P2 programs; and
  • help develop P2 packets for local Tucson businesses on industry-specific measures.

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July 16, 2008

UA's Superfund and Binational Center Program Coordinators Launch CampCIENCIAS, June 16-20, 2008

Students

The University of Arizona's SBRP and Binational Center is hosting the first CampCIENCIAS (translated, Camp Science) for 20 high school students living on the United States' side of the Mexico border. The concept for this program began with three Latina scientists/program coordinators from UA: Denise Moreno (SBRP & Binational Center), Rocio Estrella (Binational Center), and Monica Ramirez (Binational Center & SBRP).

The students' week-long CampCIENCIAS agenda will include several science-learning activities, in which students will gain skills in science, technology, engineering, and math through hands-on experiences and mentoring sessions with UA undergraduate students. CampCIENCIAS participants were selected as a result of personal essays, which focused on their lives and the reasons they wanted to attend Camp Science.

Ramirez, Moreno, and Estrella first presented CampCIENCIAS to their mentor and Binational and SBRP program director, Dr. A. Jay Gandolfi. He whole-heartedly supports the trio's goals and aspirations for their community education efforts. With this vote of confidence, the three then applied and received a grant from the UA Technology and Research Initiative Funds (TRIF) via the Water Sustainability Program. The grant will cover the tuition, room and board for the 20 students.

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July 14, 2008

Dr. Bruce Hammock Receives UC Davis' Distinguished Teaching Award

Hammock

Each year the Academic Senate of the University of California, Davis (http://www.ucdavis.edu/index.html) Exit NIEHS Website sponsors the UC Davis Distinguished Teaching Awards for Graduate and Professional Teaching. The 2008 recipient of this award is Dr. Bruce Hammock, Distinguished Professor of Entomology and UC Davis Cancer Research Center, and the Director of the Davis National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Superfund Basic Research Program (http://superfund.ucsd.edu/) Exit NIEHS Website(SBRP).

Hammock receives this award as recognition for his active involvement and dedication to his students, his interdisciplinary research, and his scientific and professional career guidance. Students and professors perceive him as a "campus icon," says Lynn Kimsey, Chair of the Department of Entomology. "Despite his international reputation and his many commitments, he remains accessible and generously spends hours training and educating students and other professionals..."

Versatile, multidisciplinary, scientific, passionate, committed, collaborative, teacher, mentor, interactive...these have all been words that students and faculty have used to describe the well-rounded and much admired professor at Davis.

Hammock's laboratory functions on numerous interdisciplinary levels, with diverse projects that combine basic, applied, and physical sciences. This distinct environment gives students and international scientists an intellectually enriching and stimulating setting, while providing them with a realistic look at skills that are desired and/or careers that are available in the current job market. His lab serves as home to both the NIEHS SBRP and the NIH Training Grant in Biomolecular Technology.

In the past five years, Hammock has hosted more than 40 postdoc fellows/senior scientists, and awarded six doctoral degrees and two master's degrees. Currently, he has seven doctoral students working in his lab, and continues to help train future entomologists, biochemists, engineers, chemists, and biologists.

Dr. Walter Leal, Professor and former Chair of the Department of Entomology, best summarizes why Hammock deserves this recognition by UC Davis' Academic Senate, "[He] is that unique individual who sparks the interest of students, holds it, and helps them succeed."

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July 7, 2008

SBRP Scientists at Duke Reveal TRI Burden Reduction Rule Flaws

Duke University scientists, funded by the NIEHS SBRP, recently published their study, "Environmental Justice Implications of Reduced Reporting Requirements of the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Burden Reduction Rule," in Environmental Science and Technology. Scientists found that the vast majority of individuals negatively affected by the 2006 EPA TRI Burden Reduction Rule are minority and low-income communities.

The TRI was first introduced to the public in 1986. It protected public communities, health and safety officers, workers, and regulators by alerting them about the presence and/or use of chemicals in, around, or near their living or working vicinity. The altered 2006 TRI Burden Reduction Rule was a rule created to exempt some industries from reporting detailed information about the toxic chemicals they released.

Marie Lynn Miranda, director of the Children's Environmental Health Initiative (CEHI) at Duke University, and associate professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment, along with her team, used a distance-based geographic information system (GIS) spatial analysis to examine the racial and socioeconomic characteristics of communities with one kilometer, three kilometer, and five kilometer buffers around exempt and non-exempt facilities.

Miranda et. al's results were found to be in discord with the EPA's interpretation of its national analysis. She said that the overall results for those communities within "proximity to industrial facilities [that are] no longer required to report detailed information about their chemical releases, have significantly higher percent minority, minority under the age of five and low-income populations compared to communities where all the information is still available...there was also significant differences in these demographics between regions and at the state level."

For the more information on Miranda's research, her publication is available at Environmental Science and Technology (http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/esth ag/asap/abs/es7028119.html) Exit NIEHS Website online.

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July 7, 2008

Brown University's SBRP Develops Disposal Mechanism for CFLs

CFL on Carpet

Dr. Robert Hurt, professor of engineering, Brown University, and senior engineering student, Natalie Johnson, helped lead Brown's SBRP research team in the development of an innovative mechanism to safely help in the disposal of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs).

This break-through is crucial because CFLs contain a small amount of vaporous neurotoxin mercury, which releases vapor when the bulb is discarded. The vapors emitted from the bulb pose serious health risks to infants, children, and pregnant women.

The Brown University teams of SBRP scientists, engineering students, and Steven Hamburg, associate professor of environmental studies, have collaborated to construct two prototypes using the mercury absorbent materials discovered by Johnson and Hurt. The two prototypes developed: a mercury-absorbent package, which will be placed inside the store-bought CFL package, and plastic bags that are specifically designed to soak up the mercury vapors when the CFLs are thrown away.

In early 2008, Brown University applied for federal patents for both the mercury absorption packaging and the absorbent material, nanoselenium. In the near future, the university hopes to talk with potential companies that are interested in manufacturing the new technology.

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June 19, 2008

UA: SBRP and U.S. Binational Center Coordinate Promotora Training

The UA SBRP and the Binational Center teams helped coordinate the "Fundamentals of Toxicology" workshop for the Community Assist of Southern Arizona and Tucson Unified School District promotoras (community health advocates) on April 19, 2008.

The workshop's objective was to increase the promotoras' level of understanding in the fields of toxicology and epidemiology from both Mexican and American academic perspectives. The half day training session was taught by Drs. A. Jay Gandolfi (toxicology) and Mercedes Meza (epidemiology); Ms. Rocio Estrella served as the event translator.

As part of the training, participants received copies of the presentations and take-home materials to help reinforce what they learned. Most importantly, the promotoras interacted with a number of UA faculty and staff, so as to encourage communication and expand their professional information resources.

This new and unique training program demonstrates UA's Binational Center and the SBRP's goal to bridge the gap between the scientists and the public.

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June 19, 2008

University of Arizona's SBRP Hosts International Conference on Mine Tailings

The University of Arizona, College of Pharmacy's Superfund Basic Research Program (UA SBRP) hosted an international workshop to address mine tailings on June 5-6, 2008. The workshop's 48 global experts converged to discuss health impacts and novel approaches to handle problems related to mine tailings in arid environments.

According to the UA SBRP, inactive and abandoned mine tailing disposal sites are prevalent in arid and semiarid regions of the world. Monica Ramirez, a member of the workshop's steering committee and coordinator for the UA SBRP Research Translation Core, commented that these "mine tailing sites can have profound health and environmental consequences."

NIEHS (a major sponsor to the workshop) funds the UA SBRP. The school's SBRP goal is to "investigate the hazardous waste and public health issues currently confronting the Southwestern region of the United States, specifically arsenic, chlorinated hydrocarbon, and mine tailings contamination."

Workshop discussions will help prepare a collaborative white paper journal article with recommendations and results from the meeting.

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Last Reviewed: September 15, 2008