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September 8, 2023 (Issue 236) |
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SRP Annual Grant Recipient Meeting: Register and Submit Abstracts by September 15
The 2023 Superfund Research Program (SRP) Annual Grant Recipient Meeting website, registration page, and abstract submission form are now live! The meeting will be held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, December 4-6. This in-person meeting allows NIEHS SRP grant recipients and trainees (i.e., graduate students and Post-Doctoral Fellows) to provide research progress updates of their SRP-supported research to other SRP grant recipients, trainees, SRP Program Staff, NIEHS Leadership, and federal/state/local end-users.
The deadline for registering and submitting an abstract is September 15. For more information about the criteria for posters and oral presentation abstracts, see the meeting website.
Save the Date! SRP Tools for PFAS Site Characterization Webinar Series
SRP is hosting Risk e-Learning webinar series focused on research efforts to develop tools for sampling, monitoring, detecting, and characterizing PFAS contamination. More information will be available soon on the SRP website, but in the meantime please save these dates:
- Session I — Novel Analytical Chemistry Approaches: Friday, October 6, 12-2 PM ET
- Session II — PFAS Sources and Mapping: Friday, October 20, 2-4 PM ET
- Session III — Standards, Passive Sampling, Libraries PFAS: Wednesday, November 8, 2-4 PM ET
Updates to ‘Key Characteristics’ Approach Described in Public Health Impact Story
An approach developed by University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) SRP Researchers, featured in a Public Health Impact Story, remains useful in predicting chemical toxicity. The approach originally identified ten key characteristics of carcinogenic chemicals that could be used to evaluate other chemicals for potential carcinogenic characteristics. Now, collaborators and working groups are expanding this approach to consider chemicals that harm the reproductive, cardiovascular, and endocrine systems, among others.
NIH Has Launched the Build UP Trust Challenge
The challenge will award up to $1.25 million in total for solutions that increase research participation and the adoption of existing and new tools and approaches to detect, treat, and monitor diseases, conditions, and disorders by improving engagement with minority populations and populations with health disparities. Learn more at https://www.builduptrust.org/.
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NIEHS SRP News Stories
Take a moment to read about some of our colleagues' latest activities in this month's Environmental Factor, the NIEHS newsletter:
Visit the SRP page for more stories about the program.
Horney Quoted on West Nile Virus
Jennifer Horney, co-leader of the TAMU SRP Center community engagement core, is quoted in an Everyday Health article about the increasing number of West Nile Virus cases as the U.S. warms.
URI Trainee Featured on Energy Environment Economy Podcast
Matt Dunn, a trainee with the University of Rhode Island (URI) SRP Center, was recently interviewed for the Energy Environment Economy podcast. He spoke about his PFAS research, explaining that passive samplers are reusable devices which allow scientists to measure PFAS over time and how this technology can help speed up research on the fate and transport of PFAS in our waterways.
Yale SRP Director Interviewed by Orlando Sentinel
Vasilis Vasiliou, director of the Yale SRP Center, was interviewed by the Orlando Sentinel about 1,4-dioxane. His research team is studying how chronic exposure to chemicals, like 1,4-dioxane found in the Floridian Aquifer, affects humans.
UNC SRP Researchers Featured for Private Well Work
Kathleen Gray and Andrew George, researchers with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) SRP Center Community Engagement Core, were interviewed by both NC Newsline and WUNC for their research on private well water in North Carolina. The community engagement research project, which was a collaboration between UNC, Virginia Tech, Northeastern, and multiple community and tribal groups, found that people of color and low-income households may experience a greater burden of disparities in exposure to toxic metals in drinking water.
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Linking Environmental Contaminants and Pregnancy Outcomes
This month we heard from Max Aung, a former trainee at the Northeastern University SRP Center. He is now a faculty member at the University of Southern California (USC).
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What was the focus of your research at the Northeastern University SRP Center?
My research used biomarkers of lipid metabolism to find potential links between environmental contaminant exposures and adverse pregnancy outcomes, like preterm birth and impaired fetal development. As faculty at USC, I investigate the link between these biomarkers and exposures to early indicators of adverse neurodevelopment.
How did you become interested in this work?
I became interested in the developmental origins of health and disease because of the potential for biomarkers to help advance risk assessment and improve early detections of adverse child neurodevelopment.
Tell us about an award you received and what it meant to you.
I received the Harvard JPB Environmental Health Fellowship to pursue environmental justice research. It is a major investment to strengthen my capacity and leadership skills to advance social and environmental health research, pursue health equity, and inform potential policy solutions and interventions. A unique component of this fellowship is the creative space it nurtures for academic scholars to collaborate with federal agency scholars to tackle challenges in order to improve environmental and public health.
What factors contributed most to your growth as a researcher throughout your time as an SRP trainee?
SRP is a stellar program that allows interaction with interdisciplinary scholars through SRP training opportunities, which has been a major factor to help me develop innovative research ideas to pursue translational environmental health research, spanning from basic science to epidemiology and community science translation.
What is one piece of advice that you have for other SRP trainees?
Interact with researchers outside of your own discipline and try to develop collaborations and mentors outside of your home institution! This can really help diversify your research portfolio and strengthen your ability to advance health equity through science translation.
How did your time as a trainee at the Northeastern SRP Center inform your current work?
My time as a trainee has helped me build the necessary interdisciplinary research skills to pursue SRP relevant research at USC. With recent funding from USC President’s Sustainability Research Award, I am co-leading a project to strengthen research infrastructure to develop a proposal for a future SRP Center at USC with a mission to investigate the biological mechanisms of PFAS exposure and engage communities in science translation and education. My leadership in these efforts reflects the strong training pipeline of the NIEHS SRP, which I aim to contribute to as a mentor for future trainees.
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Upcoming Remediation Webinars
An upcoming webinar hosted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council will focus on cleaning up chemical contamination:
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Dogs and Horses May Be Promising PFAS Monitors
Domestic animals like horses and dogs may help provide insight into PFAS exposure outside and inside the home, according to NIEHS-funded researchers at North Carolina State University SRP Center. Known as sentinel animals, horses and dogs are sensitive to environmental hazards like PFAS and can act as effective monitors for contaminants. PFAS are a class of chemicals linked to many health issues, including diabetes and immune dysfunction.
The team recruited participants with well water PFAS contamination from a neighborhood near a PFAS production facility in Cumberland County, North Carolina. Then, they took blood samples from the participants’ animals — 31 dogs and 32 horses total — to test levels of 33 types of PFAS in blood serum.
The scientists found the types of PFAS and concentrations of the chemicals in serum differed between dogs and horses. While horses had lower overall PFAS concentrations than dogs, PFAS composition in dog serum was more closely aligned with PFAS composition in humans. The authors believe this is because the animals inhabit different environments and encounter different PFAS sources.
These findings support previous studies regarding the use of dogs to monitor PFAS exposure in the home and introduce horses as a sentinel animal for PFAS exposure outside the home, say the researchers.
Additionally, the team found changes in biological molecules, known as biomarkers, related to kidney and liver function in the animals’ blood, indicating these organs may be sites of PFAS toxicity. According to the authors, future studies should explore the association between biomarker changes and PFAS exposure in dogs and horses.
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Princeton Trainee Wins Clark Soil Biology Graduate Student Scholarship
Matthew Sima, a trainee with an individual research project at Princeton, was awarded the 2023 Clark Soil Biology Graduate Student Scholarship from the Soil Science Society of America for his contributions to PFAS biodegradation.
Sprunger Wins Distinguished Faculty Award
Phillip Sprunger has received a Distinguished Faculty Award for his sustained record of excellence in teaching, research, and service at Louisiana State University (LSU). Sprunger leads a project at the LSU SRP Center investigating how environmentally persistent free radicals, or EPFRs, form and degrade in the real world.
TAMU Researchers Recognized
Galen Newman, the leader of the Community Engagement Core for the TAMU SRP Center, was appointed to the Council of Fellows of the American Society of Landscape Architects. The fellowship is among the highest honors bestowed on members and recognizes the contributions of these individuals to their profession and society at large based on their works, leadership and management, knowledge, and service.
Ruby Hernandez, a trainee, was nominated as an ambassador for the This is Public Health (TIPH) initiative of the Association of Schools and Programs in Public Health. TIPH ambassadors serve as champions of public health education, inspiring a passion for public health in the next generation of students. In addition, Hernandez was appointed as a fellow through the Bill Anderson Fund in the TAMU School of Architecture. The Bill Anderson Fund's mission and vision are to expand the number of historically underrepresented professionals in the fields of hazard and disaster research and practice so that the diversity of the hazard and disaster field be reflective of American society.
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Chemical Threat Agent-induced Pulmonary and Ocular Pathophysiological Mechanisms
What: Research seeking to understand mechanisms of chemical toxicity and to identify potential molecular/genetic targets that reduce acute effects of chemical threat agents that affect the lungs and eyes.
Funder: NIEHS
When: Applications due September 20.
Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Institutional Research Training Grant
What: Supports development of research training opportunities for individuals interested in careers in biomedical, behavioral or social sciences, clinical research, health services research, or in any other research discipline related to the NIH mission.
Funder: NIH
When: Applications due September 25.
Superfund Hazardous Substance Research and Training Program
What: SRP Center P42 grants to support problem-based, solution-oriented research centers that consist of multiple, integrated projects representing both the biomedical and environmental science and engineering disciplines.
Funder: NIEHS
When: Applications due October 2.
Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs’ (CDMRP) Toxic Exposures Research Program (TERP)
What: Supports studies that will make an important contribution toward research and/or patient care for a disease or condition related to military-related toxic exposures. Research projects may focus on any phase of research from basic laboratory research to translational research.
Funder: CDMRP
When: Applications due October 4.
Addressing the Impact of Structural Racism and Discrimination on Minority Health and Health Disparities
What: Research projects that address structural racism and discrimination in one or more NIH-designated populations with health disparities in the U.S. Applications are expected to provide a conceptual model identifying hypothesized pathways between discrimination and health outcomes.
Funder: NIEHS
When: Applications due October 10.
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Generative AI for Environmental Health Research Translation
University of Louisville researchers tested the use of ChatGPT for research translation. Five articles were submitted to ChatGPT for summarization and rated. Insight-oriented activities, such as productive of eighth-grade reading level summaries, rated higher than general summaries, proving the tool holds promise but must continue to be improved.
Software for Transforming Datasets for Submission to Metabolomics Workbench
Researchers at the University of Kentucky developed a software, Metadata for Experimental SpreadSheets Extraction System (MESSES), for transforming messy research datasets into clean submissions to Metabolomics Workbench for public sharing. The software, implemented in Python 3 programming language, helps transform tabular data from multiple formats into a Metabolomics Workbench specific deposition format.
September Data Sharing and Reuse Seminar
Steven Kleinstein will discuss how to leverage shared data to discover signatures of human vaccination and infection responses in the next Data Sharing and Reuse Seminar. A key example will be work done as part of the NIH Human Immunology Project Consortium (HIPC) where data from ImmPort was compiled and reanalyzed to identify pre-vaccination and temporal signatures of antibody responses that were shared across multiple vaccines. The seminar will be September 8, 2023 at 12 p.m. ET. Register and access recordings here.
Collaborative Webinar Series on Metadata Recommendations
The GREI Metadata and Search subcommittee’s Collaborative Webinar Series on Data Sharing in Generalist Repositories is hosting a webinar for researchers and academic staff, representatives from data repositories, and NIH staff interested in how metadata can make research more findable. Attendees will learn about the metadata recommendations from the GREI metadata and search subcommittee, including how the recommendations came about, what they hope to achieve, and next steps. Register for the webinar on September 15, 2023 at 2 p.m. ET here.
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 Identifying and analyzing contaminants from an environmentally hazardous area provides important data that can be used to develop protocols, programs, and outreach efforts that safeguard and support affected communities. TAMU SRP hosted its annual Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER) training to prepare field workers to avoid chemical exposure when they are on site. (Photo courtesy of TAMU Public Health)
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University of Rhode Island SRP Center Seeking Postdoctoral Research Associate
The URI SRP Center addresses the threat of PFAS through rigorous interdisciplinary science exploring human health impacts, transport and exposure pathways, etc. The primary responsibility of this position will be to develop and implement data management practices based on the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles for data collected from experiments, simulations, field research, and clinical studies. Inquiries should be directed to Harrison Dekker at hdekker@uri.edu.
Postdoctoral Fellowship at USC
The Department of Population and Public Health Sciences at USC in Los Angeles has recently announced a postdoctoral research associate position. The role will conduct investigations around community-driven epidemiology for environmental justice in Los Angeles.
Senior Level Position at UPenn
The Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) has an opening for a senior environmental health scientist. The primary appointment will be in Systems Pharmacology & Translational Therapeutics, but appointments in other departments are possible depending on expertise.
DTT Seeking Staff Scientists
NIEHS is seeking a staff scientist to serve as clinical pathologist in the Comparative and Molecular Pathogenesis Branch at DTT. Responsibilities may include collaborating with researchers and stakeholders, initiating and maintaining partnerships with scientific teams, and serving as a laboratory leader. For more information, email Angela King-Herbert at kingher1@niehs.nih.gov.
Staff Scientist Position at NIEHS Matrix Biology
The Immunity, Inflammation and Disease Laboratory of NIEHS is recruiting a staff scientist for the Matrix Biology Group under the leadership of Stavros Garantziotis. The Matrix Biology Group uses cell culture models, mouse models of disease, and clinical research to investigate the role of innate immunity and the extracellular matrix in lung injury and lung disease. The ideal candidate should be experienced in the fields of microbiome analysis and immune-microbiome interactions in the lung.
NIH Global Recruitment Vacancies
The Global Recruitment Unit serves NIH’s 27 Institutes and Centers with global recruitment efforts and has several new postings — including the NIEHS Division of Extramural Research and Training’s Program Officer and Scientific Review Officer positions. Several opportunities are accepting applications now, and others will open throughout the summer.
Deep South Center for Environmental Justice Seeking Program Manager
The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of children and families harmed by pollution and vulnerable to climate change in the Gulf Coast Region. They have a program manager opportunity performing administrative duties in support of the Worker Training Program.
Multiple Openings at Wayne State
The Institute of Environmental Health Sciences/Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors at Wayne State University is recruiting for several new faculty positions. Institute researchers and community partners solve complex environmental health problems through research, community engagement, and education. A postdoctoral position is also available in laboratories at the Institute of Environmental Health Sciences/Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors, Integrative Biosciences Center.
Mount Sinai Seeking Data Analyst
The Institute for Health Equity Research at Mount Sinai is seeking a data analyst to support research focusing on health and health care disparities using survey and health systems data. The ideal candidate will have strong quantitative data analysis skills and experience working with SAS, SPSS, STATA, Oracle, Python, R, or a similar statistical software package.
Penn State Seeking Assistant Professor
The Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences in the College of Agricultural Sciences and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences of The Pennsylvania State University is seeking applications for a tenure-track, faculty position at the Assistant Professor rank in Pharmacology. The position specifically focuses on expertise in microbiology, toxicology, and metabolism/metabolomics.
Multiple Positions at Silent Spring Institute
Silent Spring Institute, the leading scientific research organization dedicated to uncovering the links between chemicals in the everyday environment and women’s health, is seeking an Executive Director. The Executive Director provides direction for all aspects of the organization, setting a forward-looking agenda for advancing the Institute’s mission. Responsibilities include advancing Silent Spring’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, sustaining the vital public and private sponsorships while securing additional revenue streams, and leading a diverse and experienced staff.
The Institute is also seeking a versatile research study coordinator to contribute to innovative environmental health studies in a community-engaged context. The candidate will direct day-to-day implementation of two federally funded health and exposure studies in communities with PFAS-contaminated drinking water. The role includes coordinating activities of project staff and collaborators, managing and analyzing study data, and organizing community engagement.
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North Carolina Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting
September 14, 2023
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
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ITRC PFAS Introductory Training
September 14, 2023
Virtual
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ISEE Annual Conference — Connecting the East and the West, One Health in One Planet
September 17-21, 2023
Kaohsiung, Taiwan
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Risk e-Learning: Tools for PFAS Site Characterization
October 6, October 20, and November 8, 2023
Virtual
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The Pacific Basin Consortium for Environment and Health Focus Meeting
October 30-31, 2023
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
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American Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting and Expo: Creating the Healthiest Nation – Overcoming Social and Ethical Challenges
November 12-15, 2023
Atlanta, Georgia
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2023 SRP Annual Grant Recipient Meeting
December 4-6, 2023
Albuquerque, New Mexico
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TAMU Disaster Research Training Workshop
December 14-15, 2023
College Station, Texas
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To see the latest SRP grantee publications, visit the SRP Grantee Publications page.
Visit the SRP Materials for Grantees page for helpful information, such as SRP administrative supplements information, SRP best practices, guidelines for NIEHS logo use, and the Data Collection Form.
See the SRP Science Digest to read more about recent SRP research highlights and activities.
The SRP Events page contains information about upcoming meetings, seminars, and webinars.
The SRP website also has Search Tools to help you learn more about projects funded by the program.
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Need to get in touch with an NIEHS SRP staff member? Check out our Contact Staff page. |
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JOIN THE @SRP_NIEHS KNOWLEDGE NETWORK ON TWITTER!
NIEHS uses Twitter, a popular social media tool, for information sharing through tweets. Many SRP Centers also have accounts, and it would be great if all participated! Follow us @SRP_NIEHS to instantly hear news about the program, noteworthy publications, events, and job opportunities for trainees.
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