Stony Brook University - SUNY (Brownawell)Superfund Basic Research ProgramSources, Fate, and Identification of Endocrine Disrupting Compounds in the HudsonProgram Director: Bruce Brownawell SummaryThe goal of this study is to increase knowledge of the sources, environmental fate and health risks of chemical contaminants and their transformation products that have the potential to disrupt endocrine function in wildlife or humans - alkylphenol ethoxylate metabolites (APEMs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and other brominated flame retardants. The objectives of this project are:
Assessment of the ecological and human health risks related to EDCs is a challenge because of the complexity of EDC mixtures and the many possible mechanisms through which EDCs may interact with endocrine systems. Much of the geochemical work to date with EDCs has focused on analysis of wastewater effluents and ambient water testing, rather than on examining sediments that are likely to be larger reservoirs of bioaccumulative and persistent EDCs. There is especially a lack of study of the identification and distributions of EDCs at sites heavily contaminated with Superfund chemicals. This project seeks to fill those gaps in information. It links closely to basic biological and epidemiological research in the Mount Sinai SBRP (especially Projects 2, 5 and 6) that are elucidating mechanisms of toxicity, exploring gene-environment interactions and studying genetically determined, inter-individual differences in susceptibility to EDCs. |
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