News

Baby tooth study in the news!

February 29, 2024
Baby tooth study in the news!

Watch "The lasting impact of the baby tooth project in St. Louis", featuring the work of the MEMCARE-SRC Project 1 research team. The study investigates how levels of metals in baby teeth are related to cognition and health in later life. The 9+ minute story ran on February 28 on Fox 2 in St. Louis and will play on 2/29 on KPLR at 7 p.m central time., and 3/3 on Fox 2 at 10 p.m. central time. Read more about the study here.

Project 4 study featured in NIEHS 'Papers of the Month'

February 8, 2024
Project 4 study featured in NIEHS 'Papers of the Month'

Project 4's latest work on filtering arsenic from drinking water is featured in NIEHS's Environmental Factor newsletter. See Culinary-inspired technique removes arsenic from waterThe study, pubished in Environmental Science and Technology, was conducted in Paul Westerhoff's lab at Arizona State University. Authors include MEMCARE trainees Alireza Farsad and Mariana Marcos Hernandez.

Citation: Farsad A, Marcos-Hernandez M, Sinha S, Westerhoff P. 2023. Sous vide-inspired impregnation of amorphous titanium (hydr)oxide into carbon block point-of-use filters for arsenic removal from water. Environ Sci Technol 57(48):20410–20420.

Congratulations to Azariah Boyd on completing master's degree

January 22, 2024
Azariah Boyd

Azariah Boyd, CEC trainee in Tamarra James-Todd's lab at HSPH,  completed her Master of Science in Environmental Health Epidemiology in December! Her thesis, "Assessing Effectiveness of an Indoor Air Purification Intervention on PM Levels: The Impact of Season and Time of Day on Patients with Atrial Fibrillation", was done with the Harvard Cyprus Endowment Program.  Azariah will be joining the research lab of Dr. Rishi Wadhera, MD MPP, at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology through the Joan and Marcel Zimetbaum Fellowship in Health Outcomes, Equity, and Policy Research and we wish her the best!

CEC teaches about clean water at Franklin Park's Zoo Howl

October 28, 2023
kids at zoo howl 2023

Over the Halloween weekend, the Superfund CEC participated in the annual New England Franklin Park Zoo Howl. Our booth provided handouts designed by members of our team adapted from Boston’s Annual Water Quality Report.

zoo howl 2023Kids engaged in a modified version of the “Ap’peeling Purifier” experiment, learning about how plants absorb metals, while receiving treats.  CEC members also engaged with parents regarding their environmental health concerns. 

SRP Research Brief Features Work of Project 2 Team

October 4, 2023
SRP Research Brief Features Work of Project 2 Team

Research Brief 346: Mechanism of Cadmium-induced Neurotoxicity, Potential Treatment Revealed

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A particular class of extracellular vesicles protects against neurotoxicity caused by cadmium exposure, according to an NIEHS Superfund Research Program (SRP)-funded study. Extracellular vesicles are small packages of fats, nucleic acids, or proteins that allow cells to communicate with each other and support numerous cellular functions.

Cadmium, a ubiquitous heavy metal pollutant resulting from mining, smelting, and other industrial processes, can accumulate in soil and water. Cadmium exposure has been linked to neurotoxicity, but the underlying mechanisms involved are not well known.

Led by postdoctoral fellow Zunwei Chen, Ph.D., and Center Director Quan Lu, Ph.D., of the Harvard SRP Center, researchers set out to explore if a unique class of extracellular vesicles, called arrestin domain-containing protein 1 (ARRDC1)-mediated microvesicles (ARMMs), may hold part of the answer. Unlike other extracellular vesicles, ARMMs bud directly from the cell’s plasma membrane when the protein ARRDC1 is present.

Neural Cells Respond to Cadmium

The team carried out a series of experiments exposing a human neural cell line to cadmium. Then they looked at toxicity to the cells, the amount of extracellular vesicles produced and their contents, and markers of oxidative stress.

Extracellular vesicle production increased with cadmium dose in neural cells. Within vesicles, 392 proteins were unique to the cadmium-exposed cells.

In particular, ARRDC1 was enriched within extracellular vesicles exposed to cadmium, leading the researchers to suggest that cadmium exposure likely increased the production of ARMMs in the neural cells.

Two sets of bar graphs, one looking at the concentration of extracellular vehicles in cells and ARRDC1 expression in extracellular vehicles.

Cells exposed to cadmium, blue and orange bars, produced more extracellular vesicles than control cells not exposed to cadmium, shown in gray (A). Those extracellular vesicles similarly had higher expression of ARRDC1 with higher levels of cadmium exposure. (Image adapted from Chen et al., 2023)

ARMMs Help Block Neurotoxicity

To confirm the role of ARMMs, the researchers then looked at neural cells without the ability to produce ARRDC1, and therefore ARMMs, using similar methods.

In cells modified to lack ARRDC1, overall production of extracellular vesicles decreased by 30-40%, which the authors attributed to the lack of ARMMs.

Cells without ARRDC1 were more susceptible to cytotoxicity resulting from cadmium exposure. These cells had higher markers of oxidative stress and higher expression of oxidative stress genes compared to cells with ARRDC1, which had higher expression of antioxidant proteins.

When the scientists added isolated ARMMs back into cultures lacking ARRDC1, cells were protected from cadmium toxicity. They concluded that the transfer of antioxidant proteins is a key mechanism underlying the protective effect of ARMMs.

According to the authors, ARMMs help protect neural cells by reducing oxidative stress in response to cadmium exposure and may be used therapeutically to protect against the neurotoxicity of cadmium and potentially other metals.

Illistrative depiction of neural cells being protected by ARMMs and the antioxidative protection they provide against cadmium.

Schematic overview of how ARMMs protect neural cells from cadmium toxicity. (Image adapted from Chen et al., 2023) 

LEARN MORE:

Address Book IconContact:

Quan Lu
Harvard School of Public Health

Phone: 617-432-7145 Email:  qlu@hsph.harvard.edu

 
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Please refer to the following source:

Chen Z, Qiao Z, Wirth CR, Park H, Lu Q. 2023. Arrestin domain-containing protein 1-mediated microvesicles (ARMMs) protect against cadmium-induced neurotoxicity. Extracell Vesicle 2:100027. doi:10.1016/j.vesic.2023.100027 PMID:37614814PMCID:PMC10443948

Breise and Nwokonkwo elected NEWT SPLC Co-Presidents

September 11, 2023
NEWT logo

Congratulations to Emily Briese and Obinna Kwokonkwo, the 2023-2024 co-presidents of the NEWT Student and Postdoc Leadership Council.  Both are doctoral candidates at Arizona State University School of Engineering and Project 4 trainees. 

NEWT is an interdisciplinary, multi-institution nanosystems-engineering research center (headquartered at Rice University) whose goal is to facilitate access to clean water almost anywhere in the world by developing efficient modular water treatment systems that are easy to deploy, and that can tap unconventional sources to provide humanitarian water or emergency response.

Obinna Nwokonkwo selected as 2023 NEWT Fellow

June 5, 2023
Obinna Nwokonkwo

Congratulations to Obinna Nwokonkow, who was selected as a 2023 NEWT Fellow in recognition of his service on the NEWT Students and Postdocs Leadership Council (SPLC) as the Professional Development Chair. Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment (or NEWT for short) is an NSF-funded interdisciplinary, multi-institution nanosystems-engineering research center headquartered at Rice University.NEWT Fellows are graduate students and postdocs who have contributed to the center above and beyond their research by organizing and participating in outreach activities, serving in the SPLC, and mentoring undergraduate or summer students, amongst other initiatives. Obi is a doctoral student in Chemical Engineering at Arizona State University and Project 4 trainee,

Mona Dai presents research to University of Liverpool

May 24, 2023
Mona Dai presents research to University of Liverpool

Mona Dai, Project 3 trainee, gave a 'brown bag seminar' with Cindy Xu  of Mathematica to the Geographic Data Science Lab at the University of Liverpool on May 24. The talk was entitled, 'Mapping the Invisible: Using Data Science to Improve Drinking Water Quality, Public Heatlh and Health Equity'Mona is a PhD candidate in environmental science and engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences working with Elsie Sunderland (Project 3 lead). She uses data science to look at spatial patterns of sociodemographic factors and heavy metal environmental contamination of public drinking water systems in the United States.

Gupta named ASU Outstanding Chemical Engineering Graduate Student

May 5, 2023
Srishti Gupta

Srishti Gupta, Project 4 doctoral student, won the 2022-2023 Arizona State University “Outstanding Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Award”.  She also successfully defended her dissertation entitled, "Advancing Material Discovery for Selective Adsorption and Catalysis of Toxic Oxo-Anion Pollutants in Aqueous Phase - An Ab-Initio Study", and will be taking an industry job back home in India. Congratulations Sristhi! 

Marcos-Hernandez teaches local high school students about arsenic in water

May 5, 2023
arsenic demo

Project 4 postdoc Mariana Marcos-Hernandez orchestrated an outreach event to a STEM-focused high school in Phoenix, AZ to teach students about safe drinking water. Her team demonstrated using a colorimetric method that even though water might appear clear and "clean" it might still contain arsenic. They also conducted a filter demonstration so the students could see for themselves how a commercially available filter can capture and remove the arsenic.  

CEC participates in Franklin Park Zoo's Earth Day Event

April 22, 2023
CEC participates in Franklin Park Zoo's Earth Day Event

The Community Engagement Core participated in the Boston Franklin Park Zoo’s Spring into Action: Earth Day Event on Saturday April 22.  The CEC team had a demonstration that showed community members how Boston gets its tap water. We handed informational fact sheets focusing on water quality and other resources. We were able to reach a wide audience of the Boston community and gather information on how residents felt about the quality of their water. 

Project 4 Cross-Country Collaborative Externship

April 10, 2023
AZ_lab

Holly Rudel (Project 4, Zimmerman Lab, Yale) travelled to Tempe, AZ to visit fellow Project 4 trainees Emily Briese (Westerhoff Lab, ASU) and Srishti Gupta (Muhich Lab, ASU) to learn their techniques for surface complexation modelling and density theory calculations. While there, Holly gained insight into how her Project 4 collaborators set up their computational jobs and got to experience life in their labs.  Emily and Holly were also excited to support Srishti on her doctoral defense, where they were inspired by the body of research Dr. Gupta has done over the past five years. Holly is excited to continue her research with her ASU collaborators, and the group is looking forward to publishing numerous papers as discussed on the trip.  (Above: Emily Briese and Holly Rudel in the lab at ASU. Left: Holly Rudel, Srishti Gupta, and Emily Briese at ASU)

See also NEWT blog story

Novel water filter device deployed in Florence, AZ

April 4, 2023
Mariana Marcos-Hernandez

Mariana Marcos-Hernandez and lab-mate Alireza Farsad reached out to a community in Florence, AZ, where reports from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (AZDEQ) indicated arsenic levels in well water above the MCL of 10 ppb. In one residence, they installed a titanium-modified point of use (POU) system under the bathroom sink that will remove arsenic from the water over the coming months. Installed filter in Florence AZUsing a flow totalizer they will measure how much water has passed through the filter to calculate and monitor when the filter saturates.  Upon saturation of the filter they'll demonstrate to the community the amount of arsenic that was removed. This is the first time the team is testing this modified POU system outside the laboratory to obtain realistic operational parameters. Mariana is a MEMCARE-SRC  Project 4 post-doc working in Paul Westerhoff's lab at Arizona State University.

CEC participates in Spring into Fitness Event

March 27, 2023
CEC participates in Spring into Fitness Event

 The Community Engagement Core (CEC) participated in the Spring into Fitness community event hosted by the Cape Verdean Nurses Association and Bowdoin Street Health Center on Saturday, March 25 in Dorchester, MA. The CEC team's booth featured a demonstration of a water filter experiment for community members, and CEC members and trainees handed out coloring fitness event 1pages and clementines to kids. An informational fact sheet focusing on the important role metals have in our diet was developed for and shared during the event for National Nutrition Month. This was a fantastic opportunity for the CEC team  to engage with community members about environmental health and to hear their concerns.    

Emily Briese to present work on selective adsorption

February 17, 2023
Emily Briese

Emily Briese, Project 4 trainee and doctoral student in Paul Westerhoff's lab at Arizona State University (ASU), will present two posters on her water filtration work this February and March. at ASU events.

Birese poster at ARCSIn February, at ASU's 13h Annual School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment's Graduate Research Symposium, she presented, Computational method to predict adsorption kinetics from atomistic energetics: Iron and Alumina Surfaces. In March at ASU's ARCS Scholar Showcaseshe she presented a poster entitled, Informed Sorbent Design Towards Selectivity of Target Oxo-anions.. This is an honor that comes with a monetary prize and other benefits. Congratulations Emily!!

Paul Westerhoff elected to National Academy of Engineering

February 7, 2023
Paul Westerhoff

Congratulation Paul! Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice, or education, including,  significant contributions to the engineering literature" and to "the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education."  Read more here...

See also NAE Class of 2023

Quan Lu appointed to endowed professorship

December 20, 2022
Quan Lu

Congratulations to Quan Lu, MEMCARE-SRC PI and professor of environmental genetics and physiology at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Lu was appointed Cecil K. and Philip Drinker Professor of Environmental Physiology, effective January 1, 2023. His laboratory studies molecular mechanisms underlying complex gene-environment interactions in multigenic human diseases such as asthma and neurodegeneration, focusing on the emerging role of extracellular vesicles in disease pathogenesis, prevention, and therapeutics. His current work surrounds his discovery of a novel intrinsic mechanism known as ARRDC1-Mediated Microvesicles, which plays a key role in intercellular signaling and inter-tissue communication and holds potential as a platform for therapeutic delivery into diseased cells. The endowed Cecil K. and Philip Drinker Professorship honors former dean of the faculty the late Cecil Kent Drinker and his younger brother and former chair of the Department of Industrial Hygiene (now the Department of Environmental Health) the late Philip Drinker. The Professorship was created in 1975 through the merger of two funds established by the late James H. Rand, Jr.

Talking about Tox - An Interview with Mona Dai

November 19, 2022
Talking about Tox - An Interview with Mona Dai

Interview with Mona Dai, a doctoral student in Environmental Science & Engineering at the Harvard Paulson School of Engineering & Applied Sciences. Mona is a trainee working with Elsie Sunderland on Project 3, Spatial Patterns of Metals and Metal Mixtures in Drinking Water and her work looks at data about contaminated drinking water supplies across the country. Watch the interview here.

CEC team teaches about clean water at Franklin Park Zoo Howl

November 1, 2022
Zoo Howl 2022

During Halloween weekend the Superfund community engagement team and trainees participated the annual Zoo Howl at Franklin Park Zoo. Our booth contained a water filter experiment, which emphasized the importance of filtered water to kids. We handed out stickers, clementines, coloring pages, and informational fact sheets surrounding clean drinking water and PFAS. We were able to reach a wide audience of the Boston community and gather information surrounding their concerns around metal exposure and environmental health.

  

 

Tamarra James-Todd receives 12th Annual Alice Hamilton Award

October 21, 2022
Tamarra James-Todd

Congratulations to Tamarra James-Todd who will receive the 12th Annual Alice Hamilton Award from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. This award by the Committee on the Advancement of Women Faculty (CAWF) recognizes an especially promising tenure-track woman investigator in public health whose work has already made a significant impact and who demonstrates exceptional future promise. This award is named for Alice Hamilton, the first woman to be appointed to the faculty at Harvard University. Tamarra will receive this award and present a lecture next month.

Srishti Gupta receives Outstanding Mentor Award

October 14, 2022
Srishti Gupta

Srishti Gupta was awarded the Fall 2022 ASU Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA) Outstanding Mentor Award from Arizona State University. The Outstanding Mentor Award recognizes graduate and professional students who demonstrate excellence in mentorship on all Arizona State University campuses. Srishti is a doctoral student in Chemical Engineering at ASU and a trainee working with Chris Muhich's on MEMCARE-SRC Project 4. Her work focuses on understanding factors effecting oxo-anion adsorption of metal-oxide surfaces for selective adsorption for metal remediation.

Charlotte Wirth wins prestigious KC Donnelly Externship Award

October 12, 2022
Charlotte Wirth

Congratulations to Charlotte Wirth, doctoral candidate and Project 2 trainee in Quan Lu's lab at HSPH, on winning a 2022 NIEHS Superfund Research Program KC Donnelly Externship Award. Charlotte's externship will entail research at the University of California, Berkeley SRP Center, with guidance from Christopher Chang, Ph.D.  Charlotte studies how lead exposure affects immune cells called microglia. For her externship, she will apply a molecular labeling technique to a culture of microglia to see whether lead exposure increases cellular stress. She hypothesizes that cellular stress may trigger the release of molecular signals from microglia that might contribute to inflammation and neurotoxicity associated with lead exposure. Her findings could help inform the identification of biomarkers, or biological signs, of cognitive disorders.

Read more:

SRP KC Donnely Award 2022 Winners 

Environmental Factor: Superfund Research Program trainees win prestigious K.C. Donnelly awards 

Muhich gives invited seminars on adsorption research

October 12, 2022
muhich

Christopher Muhich, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, School for the Engineering of Matter, Transport, and Energy at Arizona State University, and co-Investigator on MEMCARE-SRC Project 4, gave three invited seminars in entitled "Understanding and Controlling Adsorption from the Group-up through Quantum Mechanical Simulation" at 1) Chemical and Biological Engineering Department Seminar, Colorado School of Mines, Golden Colorado, Sept. 2022, 2) Chemical, Biological, and Material Engineering Department Seminar, University of Oklahoma, Norman Oklahoma, Oct. 2022 and 3) Department of Chemical Engineering, and Material Science Seminar, Michigan State University, E. Lansing Michigan

Tamarra James-Todd co-leads 2nd Environmental Justice Boot Camp

October 1, 2022
ej

More than 70 trainees, professors, community advocates, and folks with a variety of backgrounds came together on August 15th and 16th for an in-depth online boot camp on the theories and methods to study environmental health disparities and environmental justice (EJ).

This boot camp was co-led by Dr. Tamarra James-Todd, an Associate Professor in the Departments of Environmental Health and Epidemiology at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and Dr. Joan Casey, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health.

The creation of this yearly EJ boot camp was driven by a lack of training opportunities surrounding designing studies and implementing methods/statistical analyses for evaluating environmental health disparities and environmental injustices. The popularity of the two-day crash course in EJ in 2021, led to its continuation this past August.

Read more here...

Nilanjana Laha takes position at Texas A&M

September 1, 2022
Laha

Nilanjana Laha has accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Statistics at Texas A&M University.  Nilanjana was a postdoctoral research fellow in Biostatistics at HSPH, working with Rajarshi Mukherjee in the MEMCARE-SRC DMAC since 2020. Her current research interest primarily lies in dynamic treatment regimes, high dimensional statistics, and shape constrained inference.