For Immediate Release: March 28, 2000
Contact: Nancy Serrell (603) 646-2117
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Dartmouth Scientists Receive $15 Million Grant For Interdisciplinary Study of Toxic Metals

HANOVER, N.H. -- Scientists at Dartmouth College have been awarded a $15 million grant by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to study the ways that arsenic, mercury, lead and other heavy metals affect human health. Joshua Hamilton, Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Dartmouth Medical School will direct the project, and Carol Folt, Professor of Biology in Dartmouth's College of Arts and Sciences will serve as Associate Director. Dartmouth was one of 17 institutions to be awarded funding through a competitive process that included proposals from over 50 universities around the country. The award represents one of the largest research grants in Dartmouth's history.

"We are pleased and proud to have Dartmouth recognized as one of the country's centers of excellence in metals research," said Dartmouth Provost Susan Prager. "The research project represents a very successful collaboration between science faculty at the College and Medical School."

The five-year grant, from the National Institute's Superfund Basic Research Program, is focused on the heavy metals that contaminate Superfund clean-up sites. Toxic to humans, these pollutants pose a serious hazard to living organisms because they accumulate in the environment rather than breaking down in soil, air or water. Though most human exposure is a result of human activity in occupational settings or waste sites, people may also be exposed to these metals through other routes, such as mercury in fish and lead in household drinking water.

Dartmouth received its first Superfund grant five years ago, largely through the efforts of the late Karen Wetterhahn, a Dartmouth chemistry professor who was internationally known for her research on chromium. Wetterhahn created and established this interdisciplinary research group two years before her death in 1997.

"Our ability to carry this work forward at such a competitive level is a great tribute to Karen Wetterhahn," said Hamilton. "She was proud to have created this working group, and continuation of this program is an important part of her scientific legacy at Dartmouth."

The program has evolved into an interactive and multi-disciplinary program involving over 60 Dartmouth researchers from 14 departments. Scientists are investigating four major areas as part of seven different research projects: the fate and transport of metals in the environment; the human epidemiology and ecological impact of toxic metals; the cellular and molecular mechanisms of action of toxic metals in humans; and the development of molecular biomarkers of toxic metals exposure and biological effects.

One important research question is the effects of arsenic in groundwater in New Hampshire. More than a quarter of all private wells in the state contain arsenic concentrations that are above new standards being proposed by the EPA. The Dartmouth group has shown that the source of this arsenic is not primarily pesticides or other human activities as previously thought but a particular kind of granite formation present in the geology of New Hampshire and Maine. This finding now allows researchers to map accurately the areas of potentially high arsenic in the region. The impact of these arsenic levels on human health or the environment is currently not known; this is also a major focus of the current work.

In addition to the scientific projects and their support laboratories, the new grant will fund an interdisciplinary training program for graduate and postdoctoral students and various outreach projects, including a public symposium series, and a new collaboration with the Montshire Museum of Science to develop a multidisciplinary environmental studies curriculum for middle school students.

Dartmouth researchers in this program are also serving as ad hoc advisors to community members discussing possible clean-up approaches to the area around the former Elizabeth Mines in South Strafford, Vt. where tailings from old copper mine operations have caused acidic runoff containing copper, iron and other metals. Dartmouth's Superfund group has played a similar advisory role in other local cases potentially involving toxic metals.

Nancy Serrell

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