Environmental & Molecular Toxicology

Dr. Dave Stone, NPIC Help Comes in Many Languages (Oregon's Agricultural Progress- Summer 2008) The National Pesticide Information Center at Oregon State University receives more than 24,000 questions each year from all 50 states and several countries. Now NPIC can handle pesticide questions in more than 170 different languages.

Dr. Jennifer Field One big drug test: Analyzing a city's sewage can put a number on its vices (The Los Angeles Times)

Which city uses more cocaine: Los Angeles or London? Is heroin a big problem in San Diego? And has Ecstasy emerged in rural America? Environmental scientists are beginning to use an unsavory new tool -- raw sewage -- to paint an accurate portrait of drug abuse in communities. …The results have been intriguing: Methamphetamine levels in sewage are much higher in Las Vegas than in Omaha and Oklahoma City, Okla. Los Angeles County has more cocaine in its sewage than several major European cities. And Londoners apparently are heavier users of heroin than people in cities in Italy and Switzerland. "Every sample has one illicit drug or another, regardless of location," said Jennifer Field, an environmental chemist at Oregon State University who has tested sewage in many U.S. cities. "You may see differences from place to place, but there's always something."

Dr. Dan Sudakin New method identifies meth hot spots (Eureka Alert) 

Dr. Dan Sudakin, a researcher at Oregon State University has used a new method of combining multiple sources of data to identify counties in Oregon with high numbers of methamphetamine-related problems per capita, giving officials a new tool in fighting the illegal drug. The study, presented today at a toxicology conference in Canada, examined statistics from four sources then identified five counties with the most meth-linked incidents per capita, such as deaths, poisonings and places where meth is made. "This method of combining different types of data – like health statistics and the location of illicit labs – to assess Oregon's methamphetamine problem is a new approach toward studying a significant public health concern," said OSU associate professor Dr. Daniel Sudakin, the study's author. "There are a lot of people analyzing the issue of methamphetamine, but they do it from different angles. For example, some focus on health problems, others focus on hazardous chemical releases from meth labs.

Dr. Robert Tanguay Nanotechnology (Oregon's Agricultural Progress- Summer 2008)

In recent years, nanotechnology has been making headlines in both the scientific and popular press primarily because of its size. The fascination that many scientists find with nanoparticles-particles smaller than a quarter-millionth of an inch, or 1,000 times smaller than a human hair-may be attributed to the technology's newness and unexplored power. The strength of the nanotech fervor has spread across research sectors ranging from pharmaceutical to fuel, and has resulted in the technology being identified as a mechanism for everything from faster prescription drug delivery in the human blood system to biofuel production. Yet, it is still new technology, and there are risks involved.

Dr. Dave Williams A Tasty Remedy for Cancer? (CBN News)

Dr. David Williams at the Linus Pauling Institute housed at Oregon State says I3C is making a name for itself. "Researchers in our group have been using indole-3-carbinol as a cancer prevention agent for a number of years," he said. Williams and his graduate student David Castro have been giving mother mice I3C in an attempt to prevent cancers in their offspring. The cancers they're studying come from air pollution. Williams describes the process, "Well, when anybody burns organic material you generate these polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which are carcinogens."

Dr. Staci Simonich was interviewed by several news organizations regarding her work in Beijing, they are listed to the right of these hi-lighted articles. She also had 156 other forms of news media that picked up her story or mentioned her work!

Tanguay lab- tied for First place platform " Gold and Silver Nanomaterials Reduce the Inflammatory Response to Injury in a Larval Zebrafish Model"

Kerkvliet lab- tied for First place platform " AhR Activation by TCDD Disrupts Effector T Cell Differentiation Inducing a Unique Type of Regulatory T Cell"

Simonich and Tanguay Labs- took second place in the platform presentation. " Relative Toxicities of Endosulfan I and Endosulfan Sulfate in Developing Zebrafish"

Kolluri lab- First place "Characterization of leflunomide as a ligand of the Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor"

Williams Lab- Second place "Critical Windows of Transplacental Carcinogenesis:Identifying efficacious approaches to chemoprevention with chlorophyllin"