EDUCATION AND TRAINING (ENRICHMENT)

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SCIENCES FELLOWSHIPS

Each year, the NIEHS Center at Davis makes awards to three graduate students, paying their fees and hiring them as half-time research assistants for one year. Students must already be admitted to a UC Davis graduate program and they are nominated by the graduate group or Center faculty. Students are chosen on the basis of their academic record and interest in the area of environmental health science. These fellowships are sponsored by the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, School of Medicine, and College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. For more information, see http://www.envtox.ucdavis.edu/cehs/fellowship.htm

GRADUATE STUDENT AWARDS

In 1997, the Center initiated a new graduate student award program. Each year, graduate students working on Center-related research are nominated by faculty to present their research at the Center's annual Environmental Health Scientists Conference. The winners are as follows:

2003

Kazuto Fujioka, Department of Environmental Toxicology, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences."Chemical and Biological Study on Thermally Oxidized Dietary Oils."

Karla Morello, Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine. "Ospemifene as a Breast Cancer Chemopreventive Agent," Morello KC, Marchisano C, Wurz GT, DeGregorio MW.

Andrew Voss, Department of Molecular Biosciences, School of Veterinary Medicine. "RyR3/RyR1 Chimeras Unmask Two Mechanisms of Mg2+ Inhibition: Competition with Calcium and Allosterism."

2002

Rachel Donham - Glutathione S-Transferases, Adrenocorticotropic Hormone and Cortisol; Combined Effects of Migratory Stressors and Atrazine Exposure on Juvenile White Sturgeon and Chinook Salmon (Rachel T. Donham and Ronald Tjeerdema from the Department of Environmental Toxicology; and Dextor Morin and Alan Buckpitt from the Department of Molecular Biosciences)

Asa Karlsson - A novel Internal Standard for Quantitative 2-D Electrophoresis (Asa Karlsson, Dextor Morin and Margret Isbell from the Department of Molecular Biosciences; and Charles Plopper and Alan Buckpitt, Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Cell Biology)

2001

Natalia Belfiore - Genetic Patterns in Resident Crayfish Chronically Exposed to High and Low Contaminant Levels (Natalia M. Belfiore and Bernard P. May, Department of Animal Science)

Jessica Bohonowych - Activation of Ah and Estrogen Receptor Based Cell Bioassay Systems by Extracts of Natural Dietary Herbal Supplements (Jessica E. Bohonowych, Jane M. Rogers, Anoek Jeuken and Michael S. Denison, Department of Environmental Toxicology)

Jennie Le - Differential Display Detecting Novel Genes Up-Regulated in Naphthalene Tolerant Mice. (Jennie Le, Aimin Chang and Alan R. Buckpitt, Department of Molecular Biosciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis)

Mang Yu - Potentiated Effect of Environmental Tobacco Smoke on Ozone-Induced Lung Injury (Mang Yu, Hanspeter Witschi, and Kent E. Pinkerton, Institute of Toxicology and Environmental Health, and Center for Comparative Respiratory Biology and Medicine)

2000

Janet Baulch - Heritable Effects of Paternal Irradiation on Signaling Protein Kinase Activities in F2 and F3 Progeny (J.E. Baulch, E. E. Enan, F. El-Sabeawy, O. G. Raabe, M. M. Vance, L. M. Wiley, 1999)

Bart Jessen - Arsenic Suppression of Keratinocyte Differentiation Markers (Bart A. Jessen, Qin Qin, Marjorie A. Phillips and Robert H. Rice)

Elaine Khan - Cross-Talk Between the Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor and Protein Kinase Signal Transduction Pathways

John Newman - Evaluation of Fish Models of Soluble Epoxide Hydrolase Inhibition (J. W. Newman, D. L. Denton, C. Morriseau, C. S. Koger, D. E. Hinton and B. D. Hammock)

1999

Scott Monk - Differential Regulation of CYP1A1 and CYP1B1 through a Novel Mechanism in Rat Keratinocytes

Joseph Billitti - Use of a Testosterone Biomarker to Study Mouse Populations at Mare Island

Patricia M. Garrison - Analysis of the Ah Receptor Gene Promoter: A Role for Histone Acetylation in the Promoter Activity

1998

Ms. Patty Wong - Molecular Mechanisms of Ortho-Substituted PCB Neurotoxicity

ANIMAL CELL CULTURE LABORATORY

This graduate course is taught by center Investigators Barry Wilson and Reen Wu. In this class, students learn the techniques of animal cell culture, with emphases on biotechnology, cell physiology and the actions of chemicals on cells. There are two hours of lecture/discussion and six hours of laboratory each week. Lectures are concerned with the history and development of cell culture, structure and function of somatic cells, cell cultivation, growth and development, the cellular actions of toxicants and drugs, the uses of cells in research and design and interpretation of experiments. Laboratory exercises introduce students to the techniques of cell culture and methods of studying their growth, morphology, metabolism and their responses to chemicals. In the last part of the course, students use the techniques to carry out short research projects of their own design.

ANNUAL CONFERENCE FOR UC DAVIS ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SCIENTISTS

The Center hosts this conference in collaboration with other campus programs--the NIEHS Superfund Basic Reserach and Training Program, the NIEHS Training Grant in Environmental Toxicology, the EPA Center for Ecological Health Research and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Graduate Studies. The purpose of this annual conference is to foster interactions between Cores, investigators, students and other researchers on campus. The format includes a guest speaker from outside the Center, Core presentations and/or group study sections on current and innovative research programs and techniques, and graduate student research presentations. The annual conference is held at Embassy Suites in Napa, CA, usually on the last Monday in August. 2002 Agenda 2001 Agenda 2000 Agenda 2000 Photos1999 Agenda

ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM

The Center holds periodic public symposiums on some aspect of environmental health of interest to the general public such as women's health or genetics and the environment. Videotapes of these symposiums are available upon request. For more information, call 530-752-2732.

The next symposium will be on Thursday, April 29, 2004 at the UC Davis Medical Center, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. This year's theme will be Air Pollution and our keynote speaker will be nationally renowned Physics Professor Emeritus Tom Cahill. Visit symposium2004 for more information or contact smeltonpiper@ucdavis.edu.

On April 30, 2003, the Center held an all-day symposium entitled The Impacts of Environmental Factors on Developing Respiratory and Neurological Systems at the UC Davis Medical Center Cancer Center in Sacramento. Agenda

On August 13-17, 2000, the NIEHS Center for Environmental Health Sciences co-sponsored Dioxin 2000 the 20th International Symposium on Halogenated Environmental Organic Pollutants and POPs. The Conference Chair was Dr. Michael Denison,m CEHS Co-Investigator. The Symposium showcased recent advances in research on organohalogen compounds and POPs, including relevant environmental endocrine disruptors. It also provided participants working in these diverse scientific areas with a unique opportunity to interact and discuss these issues. Each day of the Symposium begain with a plenary lecture, followed by oral presentations in special and general sessions on a variety of topics, and concluded with poster sessions.

On August 17, 1999, the Center held an Environmental Health Sciences Town Hall Meeting in conjunction with the International Congress on Ecosystem Health: Managing for Ecosystem Health, at the Sacramento Convention Center, Sacramento, CA. This meeting gave the public a chance to interact with scientists and other representatives from NIEHS, UC Davis, and State and Federal agencies. Agenda

UNDERGRADUATE SUMMER TRAINING IN ENVIRONMENTAL TOXICOLOGY

The Center participates in this program for highly qualified undergraduate students from around the nation who are exploring graduate school and careers in environmental health sciences and are from underrepresented groups. In 1998, the Center supported two trainees: Gabriela P. Espino from the University of Texas at El Paso worked on a project entitled: "Developing Model Agricultural Safety Curricula for Public Schools in California." Juan Bedolla from California State University, Fresno worked with the Center's Epidemiology Core on a study of "Pesticide Symptoms and Migrant Farmworkers." The 1999 trainee was Jenifer Cook, a student at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, CA. In Dr. Pinkerton's lab at UC Davis, she studied the use of fluorescent microspheres to determine particle deposition, retention, and translocation with the lungs. Cody Livingston was the CEHS recipient for Summer 2000. In Summer 2001, Samantha Cappuccino studied Lung Toxicology under the direction of Dr. Kent Pinkerton. Teri Humphrys learned about toxic effects of organophosphate pesticides from Dr. Barry Wilson. For more information about the program, please see http://www.envtox.ucdavis.edu/ETX/NIHSummer/nihsummer.htm.

SEMINAR SPONSORSHIP

In order to make Center investigators and students familiar with problems in environmental toxicology, particularly as they relate to the use of agricultural chemicals, the CEHS brings in experts from outside and across the campus to give seminars. The Center, in conjunction with other UC Davis programs, sponsors several seminars including the Department of Environmental Toxicology Seminar Series, Reproductive Biology Work in Progress Seminar Series, and the Annual Conference for UC Davis Environmental Health Scientists. For a list of current seminars, see http://www.envtox.ucdavis.edu/friends/calendar.htm.

Updated November 3, 2003

URL: http://www.envtox.ucdavis.edu/cehs/enrichment.htm