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University of New Mexico
METALS
Superfund Center
Metal Exposure and Toxicity Assessment on Tribal Lands in the Southwest
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Welcome to November 2020 Newsletter! |
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TRAINEE HIGHLIGHT
Erica Dashner-Titus
Dr. Dashner-Titus became a Research Assistant Professor in the University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy in March 2019. Her current research efforts in Dr. Laurie Hudson’s laboratory involve evaluating the effects of metals and metal mixtures on the efficacy of DNA repair.
Investigating the effects of oxidative stress following exposure to mixed metals - arsenic, uranium, vanadium, and others - on DNA Repair.
The project is highly relevant to populations exposed to metal mixtures through groundwater and occupational exposures.
Uranium and arsenic have been shown to have similar negative effects on some cell types, however this paper demonstrates that that doesn't hold true for all cell types. Immune cells were not negatively impacted by uranium at the the doses tested compared to arsenic. This information may help researchers identify target organ systems and the potential health effects in populations exposed to uranium.
Dr. Dashner-Titus is also the project manager the Thinking Zinc Clinical, which is based on seminal work by Dr. Laurie Hudson demonstrating zinc supplementation can mitigate arsenic-induced DNA damage in cells and in mice. As an integral member of the project leadership team, she is responsible for data management, logistics, and training.
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Look for these METALS poster
presentations at SRP2020
El Hayek: Uranium and arsenic interactions with the rhizosphere: impact of water chemistry and fungi-plant symbiosis
LoRosa-LoPresti: Windblown Transport of Toxic Metals in Airborne Particulate Matter Near the Jackpile-Paguate Uranium Mine on Laguna Pueblo, New Mexico
Shaikh*: Functionalized Electrospun Nanofiber Mats (ENMs) for uranium (U) remediation in contaminated waters.
*K.C. Donnelly Awardee
Beene: Geospatial modeling to map environmental exposure to abandoned uranium mine waste on the Navajo Nation, USA
Roman: University of New Mexico METALS SRP Center Responds to COVID-19 in Tribal Communities
Shuey: UNM METALS Community Engagement: Citizen and Indigenous Science in Assessments of Agricultural Lands Near Abandoned Uranium Mines
Henio-Adeky: Dual Thinking Process Among Diné Participants Designing and Participating in the Thinking Zinc Pilot Clinic Trial of the UNM METALS SRP
De Pree: The Politics of Baselining in the Grants Uranium Mining District of Northwestern New Mexico
Hudson: Preliminary Metal Biomonitoring Findings from the UNM METALS Thinking Zinc Clinical Trial
Schilz: Comparison of environmental metals and metal mixtures on oxidative stress and DNA damage in T-cells
Medina: Exposures to Uranium and Arsenic Alter Intraepithelial and Innate Immune Cells in the Small Intestine of Male and Female Mice
Cruz and Campen: Barrier and Wound Healing Impacts of Polystyrene Microplastic Particles on an Airway Epithelial Model (A549).
Volk: Inhibition of Rad18 by Arsenic
Begay: Regional Wildfire Pollution on Native Lands: Exposure Assessment and Toxicological Characterization Using a Mobile Inhalation Exposure Laboratory.
Burton and Bolt: Inhalation exposure to tungsten particulates induces early markers of pulmonary injury following acute exposure.
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"Thinking Zinc: Mitigating Uranium Exposure on Navajo Land"
A recent article in Eos highlights the METALS Thinking Zn clinical trial as a “two-way participation” between Navajo and medical communities to study the impact of zinc on mitigating health effects associated with uranium mining.
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Uranium Widows in Navajo Country:
Uranium mining has been banned in Navajo country—could it come back?
METALS Director, Johnnye Lewis, and METALS Community Engagement Core Lead, Chris Shuey, discussed concerns surrounding the exposure and health effects associated with uranium mining in a recent Sierra Club article.
" Lewis and her colleagues have found that uranium levels are higher in Navajo communities than in others across the United States and that Navajo who live near mines or areas where mine tailings were stored have a higher likelihood of developing hypertension and autoimmune diseases. And the impacts of uranium are moving from one generation to the next. In the past, scientists believed that uranium would not cross the placental barrier".
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Daniel Beene
Daniel is a member of the biostatistics group, where he focuses primarily on data management to achieve the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) data principles with input data from a few external use cases. He is also a trainee and graduate student in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies. His primary research includes the usage of computer modeling to understand how the environmental pathways of metal contaminants influence and are influenced by social determinants of health on the Navajo Nation. One of his recent projects on environmental pathways of uranium across the entire reservation was published in Environmental Science and Pollution Research International:
Lin, Y., J. Hoover, D. Beene, E. Erdei, and Z. Liu. 2020. Environmental risk mapping of potential abandoned uranium mine contamination on the Navajo Nation, USA, using a GIS-based multi-criteria decision analysis approach. Environmental Science and Pollution Research 27 (24):30542–30557.
He contributed to a chapter on community-driven environmental health science in the American Association of Geographers 2020 ebook The Rocky Mountain West: A Compendium of Geographic Perspectives
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Carmen Valesco defended her dissertation titled Chemical Interfacial Reactions Affecting the Speciation and Solubility of Uranium in Organic-rich Environments on November 11, 2020. The aim of her dissertation was to investigate the interfacial reactions between Uranium (U) and natural organic matter (NOM) affecting the solubility, adsorption, and precipitation of U in organic-rich environments.
Carmen is a mentee of Professor José M. Cerrato in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering. Her research has been supported by an NSF CAREER Award (1652619) and the UNM METALS Superfund Research Center.
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PUBLICATIONS
Avasarala, S.; J. Brearley, A.; Spilde, M.; Peterson, E.; Jiang, Y.-B.; Benavidez, A.; Cerrato, J.M. Crystal Chemistry of Carnotite in Abandoned Mine Wastes. Minerals 2020, 10, 883.
Begay, J., Sanchez, B., Wheeler, A. Baldwin F., Lucas, S., Herbert, G., Ordonez Suarez J., Shuey, C., Klaver, Z. Harkema, Wagner, J.G., Morishita, M., Bleske, B., Zychowski, K.E., & Campen, M.J. 2020. "Assessment of particulate matter toxicity and physicochemistry at the Claim 28 uranium mine site in Blue Gap, AZ." Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A (2020): 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/15287394.2020.1830210
K.E., & Campen, M.J. 2020. Assessment of particulate matter toxicity and physicochemistry at the Claim 28 uranium mine site in Blue Gap, AZ, Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A
Dashner-Titus, E.J., Schilz, J.R., Simmons, K.A., Duncan, T.R., Alvarez, S.C. and Hudson, L.G., 2020. Differential response of human T-lymphocytes to arsenic and uranium. Toxicology Letters
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COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Navajo Nation COVID-19 Water Access Coordination Group (WACG)
METALS researchers were invited to join a federal-tribal task force charged with constructing 59 new clean water stations in communities with both large numbers of homes without running water and high numbers of COVID cases, and then helping to promote the program through navajosafewater.org and radio PSAs. METALS researchers have prepared maps and analyses of water quality data and water access issues as well as building an interactive but secure database that people can access for data on local unregulated water sources. We have been active in a communications subgroup, helping craft messages and commenting on FAQs, infographics, and PSAs for the program on three Navajo radio stations.
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NIH/NIEHS P42 ES025589 (UNM METALS)
This material was developed in part under cited research awards to the University of New Mexico. It has not been formally reviewed by the funding agencies. The views expressed are solely those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect those of the agencies. The funders do not endorse any products or commercial services mentioned in this presentation.
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Follow UNM METALS on Twitter @MetalsSrp
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