Wiesner named to EPA Science Advisory Board
Dr. Mark Wiesner (Project 5 Co-PI) was named to EPA's Science Advisory Board and as Chairman of the Drinking Water Subcommittee. He was chosen for his expertise in engineering, drinking water, water quality, and water quantity for reuse.
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2019 Bass Connections Awardees
Bass Connections bridges the classroom and the world beyond the university, giving students from all of Duke’s schools a chance to tackle complex societal problems alongside faculty.
2019 Intellectual Community Planning Grant Awardees
These grants seek to foster collaboration around new and emerging areas of interest, and are available to groups of faculty at Duke.
- Dr. Richard Di Giulio
- Marine Medicine: Multidisciplinary Research at the Nexus of the Environment and Human Health
- Health as an Ecosytem: Expanding our Impaginations of Health
- Dr. Claudia Gunsch
- Exploring STEAM (Science, Arts, and Humanities) at Duke
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Elizabeth River Pilot Project Kicks Off
Working with Dr. Upal Ghosh (UMBC) and Arcadis, Savannah Volkoff has helped launch a bioremediation pilot project at the Republic Creosoting site in the Elizabeth River, VA.
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Purchase of XRF for soil testing
The Research Translation Core, in collaboration with the Analytical Chemistry Core, Project 4, and Dr. Dan Richter's lab, purchased a portable XRF for field testing of soils for lead and other heavy metals.
Chlorpyrifos ban to be heard by 9th Circuit
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments on the rollback of a proposed ban on the pesticide. Project 1 researchers, led by Dr. Ted Slotkin, published research on neurobehavioral impacts of chlorpyrifos, which were used as evidence in EPA's initial ban.
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Stapleton Lab Featured in Newsweek and Other Outlets
Dr. Heather Stapleton was quoted in Newsweek and other outlets about her lab's work on children's exposure to phthalates from vinyl flooring and flame retardants from furniture. The lab presented their findings at the 2019 AAAS conference in DC.
Dr. Stapleton was also featured in the online publication, Fatherly, about flame retardant exposure, health impacts, and the efficacy of these chemicals at reducing fire risk.
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Fish Bones and Coal Ash
Drs. Richard Di Giulio and Jessica Brandt's study on otoliths and tracking coal ash contamination mentioned in EPA Fish and Shellfish Program February newsletter.
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Spring 2019 Dissertation Defenses
Congrats to Dr. Casey Lindberg (Project 4) for successfully defending her dissertation last month. Savannah Volkoff (Project 5) will defend in June.
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Sutton Lake fish tissue sampling
Former trainee Dr. Jess Brandt worked with the CEC to collect fish tissue samples from the Lake Sutton, just north of Wilmington. The NC Department of Environmental Quality will analyze the samples for mercury at the request of Duke SRC community partners.
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Meyer Lab trainee Rashmi Joglekar and Dr. Joel Meyer took part in Science Day at the Carolina Friends School. They ran a workshop where students can look at C. elegans worms under a microscope, learn about sunburns, pollution, DNA damage, and genetic differences between people.
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Fish Consumption Advisories Discussed at NC Fish Forum
On March 21, the Duke Superfund Center, North Carolina State University's Center for Human Health & the Environment, and the University of North Carolina Center for Environmental Health and Susceptibility led a conversation with state wildlife and public health officials, fishermen, riverkeepers, and others on setting and communicating fish consumption advisories for known risks like mercury, and for emerging contaminants such as PFAS.
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Other Events
- Duke SRP research was featured in 7 posters at the Society of Toxicology's 2019 meeting in Baltimore. In addition, Dr. Meyer and Dr. Levin presented their research in scheduled talks. Postdoc Jessica Hartman, PhD, also co-chaired a poster session on neurodegenerative disease.
- Duke hosted the 2019 Triangle Zebrafish Symposium on April 16.
- Dr. Di Giulio gave a seminar to the Toxicology Program at North Carolina State University on April 16 entitled “Pollution-driven Evolution in the Elizabeth River (and PAH developmental toxicology)”
- At NIEHS headquarters in RTP, Dr. Stapleton gave the keynote speech at the Second Annual Meeting on Endocrine Disruptor Research in North Carolina. She and Catherine Kastleman also spoke on a panel discussion on community outreach related to PFAS contamination in the Haw River.
- On April 12, Duke Superfund faculty, trainees, and staff took part in a day-long science communication workshop put on by the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science.
- On March 27, Bryan Luukinen gave the Public Health Grand Rounds at East Carolina University's Brody School of Medicine. He spoke on communicating environmental health research to North Carolinians and about the Duke SRP research specifically.
- Dr. Leo Trasande (NYU) spoke at Duke on March 18 about EDCs and his new book "Sicker, Fatter, Poorer." He spoke at the invitation of postdoc Chris Kassotis, PhD.
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The CEC met with the rest of the EPA EJ Collaborative Problem Solving Grant team and community partners about on subsistence fish consumers around the Northeast Cape Fear River. The team discussed how best to wrap up outreach efforts as well as potential steps forward. The team also took part in Cape Fear River Watch's annual StriperFest in March.
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Other Updates
- CEC met with Navassa, NC's mayor, town council, and town planner to discuss inactive hazardous sites, brownfields, and superfund sites within the town boundaries. CEC presented on site histories, redevelopment possibilities, and environmental health considerations for the sites.
- Dr. Elizabeth Shapiro-Garza and Catherine Kastleman spoke as part of the Duke Engaged Scholars Lunch Series on April 17 on community-based approaches to address environmental health and justice.
- Bryan Luukinen, Catherine Kastleman, and Dr. Stephanie Smith (UNC-W) spoke to Duke Population Health students about environmental health and community engagement, specifically on the Navassa collaboration.
- Catherine Kastleman and former trainee Elena Craft (EDF) spoke on a Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE) webinar about the toxic hazards brought on by hurricanes and other storms. The webinar was convened by the Boston University SRP.
- RTC staff attended the annual AAAS conference in Washington, D.C., the Citizen Science Association meeting in Raleigh, and attended and presented a poster at the Science Talk conference in Portland, OR.
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- Lefevre E, Redfern L, Cooper EM, Stapleton HM, Gunsch CK. Acetate promotes microbial reductive debromination of tetrabromobisphenol A during the startup phase of anaerobic wastewater sludge bioreactors. Science of the Total Environment. 2019 Mar 15; 656:959-68. PMCID: In Process.
- Oliveri AN, Levin ED. Dopamine D1 and D2 Receptor Antagonism During Development Alters Later Behavior in Zebrafish. Behavioral Brain Research. 2018 Aug 30. PMCID: PMC6192051.
- Watson ATD, Nordberg RC, Loboa EG, Kullman SW. Evidence for aryl hydrocarbon receptor-mediated inhibition of osteoblast differentiation in human mesenchymal stem cells. Toxicological Science. 2018 Sep 7. PMCID: PMC6317429.
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