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VICE PRESIDENT RESEARCH & HEALTH SCIENCES | SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENT
 
 

Current Funded Research endorsed by ERIC

Dr John H. Dawson
Carolina Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Research Title and Summary:
“Communities, Toxins and Enzymes: Structural, Functional and Evolutionary Relations”

The proposed research conducts an initial comprehensive ecological, evolutionary, biological and chemical analysis of diverse species capable of halogenating and dehalogenating a variety of substrates. The goals of the research specifically include an emphasis on mimicry as an ecological process and convergence as an evolutionary consequence. Establishing the relationship between enzyme specificity and environmental pressures will be accomplished studying enzyme sequences, kinetics and structure with such techniques as molecular biology, spectroscopy and x-ray crystallography. The current working hypothesis, based on the dehalogenases of Amphitrite and halogenases of Notomastus, is that these proteins originated from an ancestral globin, diverged as oxygen carriers and then independently converged to halogenase and dehalogenase functions.

Co-Investigators:

Dr. C. Marjorie Aelion
Professor and Graduate Director, Department of Environmental and Health Sciences

Research Title:
“Predicting Biodegradation of Phenanthrene Using stable Carbon Isotopes: Incorporation of Mathematical Modeling”

All carbon-based molecules are composed of combinations of 12C (~99%) and 13C (~1%) which are expressed as the isotopic ratio 12C/13C.  Biological processes in plants and bacteria can change this isotopic ratio making stable isotopes of C useful tools for tracking the transformations of organic chemicals from biological processes.  14C is the radioactive isotope of C (~<<< 1%) and has a half-life of ~5,700 years.  Many organic contaminants are derived from old carbon because they are synthesized from petroleum and have no 14C left.  Biological processes do not change the value of the 14C so if these chemicals are degraded, the products of degradation have no 14C.  Bacteria can degrade many organic pollutants but the extent and rate of biodegradation are difficult to measure in the environment.  Based on laboratory-derived data and mathematical modeling studies, we will use these three isotopes of C to quantify bacterial degradation of phenanthrene, a typical pollutant.

Co-Investigators:

Dr. Timothy A. Mousseau
Professor, Department of Biological Sciences

Research Title:
“Radioactive Contaminants, Antioxidants, and Mutation:
A Comparative Analysis of Birds, Flies and Humans of Chernobyl”

Mousseau and his colleagues are investigating the links between radioactive contaminants, and the health, survival and reproduction of model bird species inhabiting the Chernobyl region of Ukraine. Previous research has found that some birds have dramatically reduced survival rates that may be related to elevated mutation rates in populations living in the contaminated regions of northern Ukraine. Of particular interest are the interactions between contaminants, oxidative stress, and damage to DNA and DNA repair mechanisms. This project will examine the relationships between levels of antioxidants (e.g. vitamins A and E, and carotenoids), oxidative stress within cells, and DNA damage within red blood cells and sperm in several species of birds. Assays will also be developed that can be extended to human samples.

Co-Investigators:

  • Dr. Clarke Millette
    Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology and Anatomy, School of Medicine, USC
  • Dr. Mike Wyatt
    Assistant Professor of Biomedicinal Chemistry,
    Department of Biomedical Chemistry, USC College of Pharmacy
  • Dr. Travis Glenn
    Associate Research Scientist, Savannah River Ecology Lab; Adjunct Assistant Professor,
    Dept. of Biological Sciences
  • Dr. John Baynes
    Carolina Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
  • Dr. Mike Walla
    Director, Mass Spect Center, Dept of Chemistry and Biochemistry
  • Dr. John Vena
    Professor and Chair, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
  • Wilfried Karmaus, MD, MPH
    Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Michigan State University
  • Dr. Anders P. Moller
    Director of Research, University of Marie and Pierre Curie CNRS,
    Paris, France 33 1 44 27 25 94;
International Collaborators:
  • Dr. Marina Naboka
    Research Associate
    Radioecoiogical Center of National Academy of Sciences of the Ukraine
  • Dr. E. Stepanova
    Ukraine Acad Med Sci, Res Ctr Radiat Med, Kiev, UA-254050 Ukraine
  • Dr. Peter Surai
    Avian Science Research Centre, Scottish Agricultural College,
    Auchincruive, Ayr KA6 5HW, UK
  • Dr. Alexander Peklo
    Curator of Ornithology, Ukrainian National Museum of Natural History, Kiev, Ukraine
  • Dr. Gennadi Milinevsky
    Deputy Director of Research, Ukrainian Antarctic Center, Kiev, Ukraine
  • Dr. Vladimir Bezrukov
    Professor of Genetics, University of Kiev, Ukraine
  • Dr. Seregi Gaschak
    Research Scientists, International Radioecology Laboratory, Slavutych, Ukrain
Dr. Charles E. Pierce
Associate Professor,
Civil and Environmental Engineering		 Dr. Erik I. Anderson
Assistant Professor,
Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research Title:
“Characterizing the Hydrologic Properties of Faults in Single-and Multiple-Aquifer Systems

Fault zones in the shallow crust are heterogeneous features with physical and chemical properties that vary in space and time. Faults in granite, sedimentary and unconsolidated materials have characteristic width scales of meters and length scales of the order of tens of kilometers. Associated with the linear geometry are large changes in hydraulic conductivity and porosity; rapid horizontal and/or vertical redistribution of fluids flowing through a fault can occur. There is a growing need for accurate simulations of groundwater flow to address environmental issues. When the presence of a fault can impact groundwater conditions, numerical simulations require, as input, bulk values for the hydrologic properties of fault zone. Currently, we are hindered in our ability to develop valid flow models by our inability to measure directly, or in situ, the bulk values of fault zone properties such as hydraulic conductivity, porosity and storativity. We wish to investigate the common qualitative description of a fault zone as an anisotropic inhomogeneity embedded in an aquifer by attempting to quantify the directional properties of a fault through large-scale field testing. If it is possible to measure these properties and we find they are consistent with the conceptual model, we will have improved greatly our understanding of the hydrologic properties of faults, and our ability to simulate the effects of faults in predictive models of groundwater flow.

Co-Investigators:


Dr. Joseph M. Quattro
Associate Professor of Biological Sciences and Marine Science

Research Title:
“Assessing Contaminant Impacts at the Molecular Level Using Grass Shrimp
(Palaeomonetes pugio) as a Marine Sentinel”

Studies are proposed that address the increasing incidence of toxicant exposure (particularly agricultural run-off) and its effects on the transcriptome of the grass shrimp, Palaemonetes pugio. The grass shrimp is a common inhabitant of estuaries along the Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico from Nova Scotia to Texas, and is a widely used, ecologically important, crustacean model for toxicological studies in estuarine environments. Due to its high natural densities and ease of culture in laboratory settings, P. pugio has become a ‘sentinel species’ for marine resource managers. Further, Palaemonetes are easily cultured, occur in tidal creek ecosystems adjacent to terrestrial influences and are therefore excellent models for assessing sublethal toxicant effects of importance to ecologically and economically important crustaceans in estuarine systems. Developments in molecular technologies have presented scientists with an unparalleled opportunity to study the dynamics of literally thousands of genes under a diverse array of real world conditions. Exogenous stressors alter and produce ‘diagnostic’ gene expression patterns that can be quantified. Although a variety of traditional endpoints have been used to assess environmental stress, these have a limited number of variables. In contrast, genomic approaches offer extremely dense multivariate data sets which should increase the probability of detecting unique profiles associated with a stressor thereby increasing predictive power. We propose to develop genomic tools for the quantitative measurement of gene expression in the grass shrimp, an ecologically important sentinel marine species. These approaches will be used in laboratory and natural settings to assess the health of marine organisms at the population level.

Co-Investigators:

  • Dr. P. L. Ferguson ()
    Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
  • Dr. G. T Chandler
    Professor, Department of Environmental Health Sciences
  • Dr. G. I. Scott
    Director
    Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research
    National Ocean Service
    Charleston, SC
  • Dr. T. W. Greig
    Geneticist
    Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research
    National Ocean Service
    Charleston, SC
  • Dr. R. W. Chapman
    Research Scientist
    SCDNR/MUSC/Hollings Marine Laboratory
    Charleston, SC
  • Dr. P. Sandifer
    Senior Scientist
    NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science
    Hollings Marine Laboratory
    Charleston, South Carolina

Dr. John Vena
Professor and Department Chair, Department of Epidemiology

Research Title and Summary:
“NIEHS SuperFund Basic Research Program – Center Grants Competition: Community and Environmental Health Risks Associated with Superfund Sites in Southeastern Coastal Systems”

This project brings together a multidisciplinary team of investigators from the University of South Carolina (USC), the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and several state and federal agencies to research improving the sensitivity and specificity of detecting adverse event linkages in humans and in ecosystems exposed to hazardous substances from Superfund waste sites. The study will emphasize several priority pollutants plus newly emerging pollutants of concern; transport, fate, transformation, and effects of hazardous substances; and development of remediation and intervention strategies that attenuate and mitigate exposure to protect human and ecological health. It will also develop a Biomedical Research Center that will support both biomedical and non-biomedical projects. Extensive uses of genomics and proteomics, along with imaging technologies, miniaturized tools/sensors at the micro and nano-level, and bioinformatics tools, are planned. Use of mechanism-based research, integrative human and ecosystem biology/chemistry, susceptibility and predisposition research, and development of new biostatistical and risk-assessment modeling methods will be focal points. Research projects in exposure assessment, ecotoxicology, site bioremediation, ecosystems research and modeling will be integrated across human environmental health and epidemiology themes.

Co-Investigators:
 
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