Superfund Research Program News

As featured in the latest NIEHS Research Brief and this month’s NIEHS Environmental Factor, research led by Dr. Rebecca Fry has shown that blocking the glucocorticoid receptor pathway in a chick embryo model prevents birth defects induced by exposure to arsenic. These findings were the result of a novel systems biology approach combining computational analysis… Read more »

July 09, 2013 Members of the Gillings School of Global Public Health’s Carolina Center for Computational Toxicology conducted a workshop at Health Canada, in Ottawa on June 25, to introduce public health workers to computational toxicology tools for Next Generation (NexGen) environmental risk assessment.Health Canada, similar to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,… Read more »

Dr. Ivan Rusyn was recently featured in an interview about environmental chemicals and toxicogenetic research in the “Ask the Scientist” features of the News & Observer and Charlotte Observer.   During the interview, Dr. Rusyn described the challenges of evaluating chemical safety as well as new research to better understand how genetics can influence how… Read more »

June 10, 2013   A new collaboration of industry, government agencies and academia aims to better understand – through crowdsourcing – how a person’s individual genetics can influence the body’s response when it is exposed to certain environmental and pharmaceutical chemicals.Organized and led by scientists from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Sage… Read more »

On March 25, 1013 eighteen participants, including SRP trainees, faculty and staff from UNC’s Gillings School of Public Health and NIEHS staff member Beth Andersen, took part in a Technology Development Boot Camp sponsored by the UNC SRP Research Translation Core and the Office of Technology Development.   Boot Camp participants learned how to translate… Read more »

SRP trainee Allie Sanders was selected as a 2013 recipient of the UNC Graduate Education Advancement Board (GEAB) Impact Award. This award recognizes UNC graduate students whose research will benefit the citizens of North Carolina.   Allie is being recognized for her research on prenatal exposure to toxic metals through a study of pregnant women… Read more »

Kyle Messier, PhD candidate in Dr. Marc Serre’s lab, was also selected as a 2013 recipient of the UNC Graduate Education Advancement (GAEB) Impact Award.   Kyle’s research has focused on integrating multiple GIS methods to estimate tetrachloroethylene (PCE) in North Carolina groundwater. His research integrated geocoding, land-use regression modeling, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and… Read more »

April 04, 2013 An environmental sciences and engineering professor at Gillings School of Global Public Health once again will lend his expertise to a national group of scientists charged with evaluating the validity of research about potentially carcinogenic chemicals. Dr. Ivan Rusyn Ivan Rusyn, MD, PhD, begins service this month as an appointed member of… Read more »

  Officials perform a site visit at the Horton Iron & Metal Co. The Superfund Research Program helps solve complex health and environmental issues associated with Superfund sites and also improves our ability to understand and response to the needs of communities living near hazardous waste sites. In 2012, the UNC Research Translation Core (RTC)… Read more »

Scientific advances led by investigators in the UNC Superfund Research Program are making it possible to assess cancer risks from exposure to chemicals more accurately than ever before. This increased precision will enable regulators and policymakers to set more realistic, data-supported thresholds for clean-up of Superfund sites and other contaminated areas. Using state-of-the-art mass spectrometry… Read more »