Program Overview
The central goal of this program is to implement modern scientific approaches designed to identify and characterize genomic stress responses elicited by waterborne pollutants found at Superfund sites. By developing innovative methodologies to identify biological responses that are caused by exposure to environmental contaminants and by defining the exposure pathway, this program will produce tools to assess mechanisms of toxicity mediated through cell signaling and gene expression. Our location in a coastal environment and our proximity to a populated international border creates unique environmental US/Mexico transboundary issues that involve waterborne pollutants. Our Research Translation and Community Outreach Cores are building partnerships with local industry, tribal science labs and transborder (binational) community groups to utilize our developing technologies as applied biological tools for monitoring toxicants and improving environmental health risk assessment. Our multidisciplinary and partnership-driven efforts are anticipated to provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms that lead to environmental illness and to improve our understanding of the consequences of exposure to Superfund site contaminants.
The central hypothesis of this program is that "alterations in cellular signaling and gene expression by Superfund site chemicals can be exploited to develop biological models for the detection and bioremediation of chemical toxicants". Analysis of patterns of gene expression in vivo and in vitro will identify biomarkers of environmental injury and lead to more accurate mechanistic endpoints that can be used for risk assessment and remediation decisions. Our findings have shown that chemical exposure leads to alterations in patterns of gene expression which are controlled and regulated by underlying signal transduction pathways. Our experimental strategies will rely heavily upon recombinant DNA and the development of new technologies to yield new perspectives on monitoring, remediation and mechanisms of toxicity mediated through altered gene expression and aberrant cellular signaling.
Investigators with complimentary expertise from 10 UCSD Departments, Organized Research Units and Centers are participating in this project. The program's multidisciplinary team consists of 5 biomedical research projects, 2 non-biomedical research projects and 3 research support cores. The research is supported by an administrative core. Three additional cores focus on Ph.D. training, research translation, and community outreach.
