Projects and Grants per year
Grants and Contracts Details
Description
The University of Kentucky is unique among land grant universities in that all colleges, including Medicine
and Agriculture, are located on the same campus. This constellation of programs has enabled the UK-SBRP
to develop uniquely productive collaborations across diverse disciplines. Such an environment will allow to
study the overall theme of our SBRP research, which focuses on the toxicology of Superfund chemicals and
how health effects of exposure can be modulated by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors, namely genetics and
nutrition, respectively. Given the abundance of Superfund chemicals and widespread distribution in the
ecosystem, it is unlikely that remediation alone will be sufficient to address their health risks. Nutritional
intervention thus becomes a sensible way to address health problems associated with environmental
pollutants. In our competing renewal, we recognize this dual need for sensing/remediation and biomedical
intervention through nutrition by proposing five integrated projects. We will concentrate on chlorinated
organics (e.g., polychlorinated biphenyls) prevalent in most Superfund sites, including those found in
Kentucky. Our preliminary findings suggest that nutrition and dietary habits can markedly influence
mechanisms of toxicity of the above-mentioned Superfund chemicals. Thus, a major objective of our SBRP
is to explore the paradigm that nutrition can modify Superfund chemical toxicity. All biomedical projects will
focus on chronic diseases associated with vascular dysfunction, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer
metastasis, and obesity-related abdominal aortic aneurysms, and will utilize a similar dietary fat regiment to
study nutrient/toxicant interactions. There will be significant cross-talk with non-biomedical projects, which
will explore novel techniques for both remediation (detoxification) and biosensors associated with detection
of PCBs and other chlorinated organics. Results from our interdisciplinary research will be utilized for
information/education, technology transfer, training, policy and translational purposes as part of the
objectives of the Research Translation, Community Outreach, and Training Cores. Nutrition may be the most
sensible means to develop primary prevention strategies of diseases associated with many environmental
toxic insults. Thus, our research may lead to novel dietary recommendations at the national level for
populations at risk, thus improving the health of people residing near Superfund sites.
Status | Finished |
---|---|
Effective start/end date | 4/7/97 → 3/31/09 |
Funding
- National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
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Projects
- 1 Finished
-
Nutrition and Superfund Chemical Toxicity
Hennig, B., Bachas, L., Bhattacharyya, D., Black, P., Cassis, L., Daugherty, A., Daunert, S., Gaetke, L., Ormsbee, L., Smart, E., Stromberg, A., Swanson, H., Toborek, M., Wei, Y. & Zhu, H.
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
4/7/97 → 3/31/09
Project: Research project