HBOI
RESEARCH
Our lab recognizes that environments are contaminated by toxins that might take lifetimes to reduce or eliminate. Rather than solely focusing on how these chemicals affect our health, our approach is to find ways to harness natural pathways in the body that detoxify and reduce the effects of these chemicals.
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Can Nutritional Status Reduce the Effects of Blue-Green Algae Toxins
in Mice?
Microcystin is a naturally occurring toxin produced by blue green algae. When the algae blooms out of control, due to human induced changes to the environment, these toxins are released and have detrimental effects on humans, pets, and wildlife. Natural chemicals that our bodies make after eating cruciferous vegetables like broccoli have broad antioxidant and detoxification effects which are protective. Other natural chemicals, such as fats found in westernized diets, are known to interact with microcystins to make their toxic effects stronger. We are using the mouse as a model to examine the effects of nutritional status on the response to microcystins.
Funding agency: HBOI foundation
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​We use an integrative systems approach that combines field and laboratory experiments to investigate how environmental context scales across multiple levels of biological organization—from molecules to populations. We ask questions that are conceptually motivated so that our work is general and informative to diverse scientific fields including development, physiology, evolution, ecology, conservation, and medicine.
Our main focus is to understand the mechanisms through which organisms protect themselves from toxins and pollutants and leverage those natural processes to devise ways to protect humans, our companion animals, and wildlife from these chemicals.
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Protecting People from Harmful Algal Bloom Toxins
The first step in helping communities in South Florida protect themselves from harmful algal toxins is to characterize which toxins people are typically exposed to, when and where they are exposed, and what the potential exposure level is. Our initial approach to begin investigating this is to collect shore grabs of water from local boat launches, water areas near nature centers, and public parks - water that people could potentially wade into, swim in, or fish in.
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We are exploring this question in partnership with Dr. Nancy Harris of the FAU College of Nursing and the outreach team at the HBOI Ocean Discovery Visitors Center, directed by Dr. Gabrielle Barbarite. Over spring and summer of 2022 we will collect water samples and water chemistry parameters and then measure a wide variety of toxins produced by algae in the fall of 2022 in collaboration with Dr. Tim Garrett at University of Florida's Southeast Center for Integrated Metabolomics.
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An important goal of this project is to build partnerships with local community health organizations and nature centers to build a cohort of stakeholders interested in environmental toxins. We want to inform residents about how human-induced environmental harm can change ecosystems in ways which are detrimental to human health, and empower residents to take steps to reduce toxic harms in their communities. Our engaged network of citizens will become involved in research that will allow us to measure the amount of toxins in their bodies, and in their pets, and test if these levels decline with nutritive supplements.
Funding Agency: HBOI Foundation grant to Center for Coastal and Human Health (Year 4)
Are Edible Halophytes Antioxidant Rich?
The FAU Harbor Branch Aquaculture Development Park is working toward a future where people can farm seafood without sacrificing marine ecosystem health. As part of their land-based integrated multi-trophic aquaculture system they grow edible halophytes in their water recycling systems. These salt-loving plants naturally grow in estuaries and lagoons worldwide, and have been shown to have antioxidant properties. Our team, in collaboration with aquaculture faculty, is interested in determining if these halophytes, which are being grown as a potential human food source, also contain beneficial antioxidant properties that can protect us from environmental toxicants.
Funding agency: HBOI Foundation grant to the Center for Coastal and Human Health (Year 3)
Autism Prevention
Conceptual Diagram created by Dr. Karen Litwa in Biorender
Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are characterized by altered development of neural circuits that manifest at early ages with deficits in social behaviors and communication. The incidence of ASDs in the United States has more than doubled in the last 20 years, affecting nearly 2% of eight year-olds and affecting boys four times more often than girls. Although some ASDs are caused by genetic mutations, other cases are linked to exposure to environmental contaminants. We are testing the hypothesis that we can protect the developing fetal brain from the known neurotoxicant Valproic Acid by reducing oxidative stress and preventing the emergence of neurodevelopmental disorders. This work is in cooperation with a collaborator at East Carolina University, Dr.Karen Litwa, and our work at Harbor Branch will test behavioral effects of Valproic Acid in mouse models.
Funding agency: National Institutes of Health, National Center for Complementary and Integrated Health
Preventing Birth Defects due to Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals
Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), are ubiquitous environmental pollutants that negatively affect a variety developmental, physiological, and behavioral processes. Endocrine signaling regulates sexually dimorphic reproductive system development and plays an important role in organizing embryonic tissues so that they can respond to hormonal signals later in life. For example, the endocrine system modulates the expression of sexual dimorphisms in gonad, brain, liver, and other tissues. Exposure to EDCs that alter normal hormonal signaling during embryonic development can, therefore, permanently alter reproductive system morphology and function as well as the reproductive behavior of adults. Importantly, many components of the endocrine and reproductive systems are highly conserved across taxa, so EDCs can have generalized and similar effects across vertebrates (including humans). We are investigating the ways in which prenatal supplementation can reduce the effects of these contaminants on developing fetuses in a mouse model.
Funding agency: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
