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CEHS announces 2016 Call for Pilot Project Proposals
The deadline for this submission has passed.
The CEHS invites MIT faculty and research staff with Principal Investigator privileges to submit applications for funding of pilot projects related to basic and translational research in environmental health sciences. Please see the attached flier for more information.
Funding will start on September 1, 2016. Please feel free to contact Amanda Tat if you have any further questions.
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Asthma linked to DNA damage
House dust mites, which are a major source of allergens in house dust, can cause asthma in adults and children. Researchers from MIT and the National University of Singapore have now found that these mites have a greater impact than previously known — they induce DNA damage that can be fatal to lung cells if the damaged DNA is not adequately repaired.
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What Does The Vice President’s ‘Moonshot’ To Cure Cancer Mean?
Prof. Michael Yaffe speaks with Scott Kirsner of WBUR’s Radio Boston about Vice President Joe Biden’s new cancer initiative. Prof. Yaffe says that the announcement comes at a “golden era for cancer research. We’ve laid the groundwork and we’re poised with incredible technologies, knowledge and understanding of the disease.”
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Benefits of mercury controls for the United States
Mercury is a globally transported pollutant with potent neurotoxic effects for both humans and wildlife. This study introduces an assessment method to estimate the potential human health-related economic benefits of global and domestic mercury control policies. It finds that for the US population as a whole, global mercury controls could lead to approximately twice the benefits of domestic action by 2050. This result is robust to several uncertainties and variabilities along the emissions-to-impacts path, although we find that those consuming locally caught freshwater fish in the United States could benefit more from domestic action.
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A mouse-human phase 1 co-clinical trial of a protease-activated fluorescent probe for imaging cancer
Local recurrence is a common cause of treatment failure for patients with solid tumors. Intraoperative detection of microscopic residual cancer in the tumor bed could be used to decrease the risk of a positive surgical margin, reduce rates of reexcision, and tailor adjuvant therapy. We used a protease-activated fluorescent imaging probe, LUM015, to detect cancer in vivo in a mouse model of soft tissue sarcoma (STS) and ex vivo in a first-in-human phase 1 clinical trial. In mice, intravenous injection of LUM015 labeled tumor cells, and residual fluorescence within the tumor bed predicted local recurrence. In 15 patients with STS or breast cancer, intravenous injection of LUM015 before surgery was well tolerated. Imaging of resected human tissues showed that fluorescence from tumor was significantly higher than fluorescence from normal tissues. LUM015 biodistribution, pharmacokinetic profiles, and metabolism were similar in mouse and human subjects. Tissue concentrations of LUM015 and its metabolites, including fluorescently labeled lysine, demonstrated that LUM015 is selectively distributed to tumors where it is activated by proteases. Experiments in mice with a constitutively active PEGylated fluorescent imaging probe support a model where tumor-selective probe distribution is a determinant of increased fluorescence in cancer. These co-clinical studies suggest that the tumor specificity of protease-activated imaging probes, such as LUM015, is dependent on both biodistribution and enzyme activity. Our first-in-human data support future clinical trials of LUM015 and other protease-sensitive probes.
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The Partnerships for Environmental Public Health (PEPH) presents: Meet the Editors
Thinking of publishing an article about environmental public health? Interested in what journal editors are looking for these days? In this webinar, you will hear from three editors who will present some general ideas about what it takes to get an article published, styles and formats appropriate for environmental public health, and the possibility of special issues and supplements. This webinar will include a dedicated Q&A session.
Registration is required. Please register here.
Click here to see the pdf flyer.
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2015 CEHS Poster Winners
The Center for Environmental Health Sciences (CEHS) at MIT held its annual poster session on May 13, 2015 at the Morss Hall, Walker Memorial Building (50-140). The session highlighted the work of the environmental health research communities of MIT and some of our sister institutions. Over sixty posters were presented from the science and engineering laboratories affiliated with the Center. We would like to thank all of the poster presenters for participating in this event.
This event was also featured in the MIT News.
The CEHS has an overall mission to study the biological effects of exposure to environmental agents in order to understand, and predict, how such exposures affect human health. Moreover, by uncovering the chemical, biochemical and genetic bases for environmental disease, sometimes we are able to leverage that understanding to delay or even prevent the development of disease in human populations. To that end, the Center brings together 39 MIT faculty members from a total of nine MIT departments (in both the School of Science and the School of Engineering) plus one Harvard faculty member from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).
This year’s CEHS cash prizes are awarded in two categories, graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. For each category, the prize for first-place is $1,000, second-place prize is $500, and the third-place prize is $200 plus CEHS memorabilia. The cash prizes were made possible by the Myriam Marcelle Znaty Research Fund, which was established nearly 30 years ago to support the research of young scientists at MIT.
Graduate Students, Postdoctoral Scholars, and Research staff presented the results of their research at MIT's Morss Hall. The CEHS 2015 Poster Winners are mentioned below.
Ms. Amy Rabideau from Professor Bradley Pentelute’s lab won first place in the graduate student category. Amy presented her work on the “delivery of polypeptides and antibody mimics into cells using anthrax toxin.” In second place is Mr. Fei Chen, from Professor Edward Boyden’s lab, who presented his work on “expansion microscopy.” Finally, in third place is Ms. Marianna Sofman, from Professor Linda Griffith’s lab, who presented her work on “engineering angiogenesis: a materials approach to vascularizing tissue.”
In the postdoctoral scholar category, first place went to Dr. Kelly W.L. Chen, from Professor Douglas Lauffenburger’s lab, who presented her work on “multivariate analysis of intestinal epithelial cell and immune cell crosstalk in normal and inflammatory conditions.” Second place went to Dr. Kathryn B. Smith-Dupont, from Professor Katharina Ribbeck’s lab, who presented her work on “biophysical tools for understanding the barrier properties of mucus: cervical mucus as a case study.” And lastly, Dr. Uthpala Seneviratne, from Professor Steven Tannenbaum’s lab, took third place after presenting his work on “decoding the S-nitroso proteome in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s by SNOTRAP and mass spectrometry–clues for altered signaling pathways.”
Pictures of the winners:
Graduate student winners (from left to right): Marianna Sofman (3rd place), Fei Chen (2nd place), and Amy Rabideau (1st place).
Postdoctoral Scholar winners (from left to right): Uthpala Seneviratne (3rd place), Kathryn B. Smith-Dupont (2nd place), and Kelly W.L. Chen (1st place).
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New evidence for how a rare form of liver cancer arises
MIT team finds mechanism by which exposure to vinyl chloride may produce cancerous mutations.
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Workshop on CEHS pilot project support and funding
The CEHS is offering a Workshop focused on the benefits and opportunities available to CEHS members. Please come to learn about Pilot Project funding, and about other ways that the Center can help your career.
Please join us for a short meeting just prior to Friday Forum on March 20th at 3:30pm-4pm in 56-614.
Refreshments will be served. We look forward to seeing you there!
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2015 CEHS Poster Session
The CEHS will host its annual Poster Session on Wednesday, May 13, 2015. We encourage researchers to submit an abstract/poster for this event. Best of luck to all submitters and we look forward to these wonderful posters!
Please see attached flier for more information. Click Here
Abstract deadline is: Friday, April 10, 2015.
