A group of 11 Dartmouth scientists led by Acting Dean of the Faculty Karen Wetterhahn will receive more than $7 million over the next five years from the federal government to research how toxic metals in the environment affect the human body.
The grant was awarded by the National Institute for Environmental Health Services, one of the National Institutes of Health. The money for the grant comes from the Superfund, which was created by Congress in 1980 to clean up hazardous waste and to investigate its effects on humans and other species.
"It is a big boost for Dartmouth," said Chemistry Professor Joshua Hamilton, the associate director of the research project. "We will be considered among the top institutions that have garnered these Superfund grant."
The grant will be distributed to 11 biologists and chemists from the College, the Dartmouth Medical School and the Veterans Administration Hospital in White River Junction, Vt..
According to DMS Toxicologist Aaron Barchowsky, a participant in the program, more than 40 institutions were competing for the grant. The money will give the researchers an annual budget of approximately $1.25 million, he said.
Hamilton said the grant will allow the scientists to investigate how toxic metals "move through the ground, get into water supplies, get from there into human beings and what the long-term consequences of exposure are."
Besides research, the grant will also fund community symposia on toxic metals and the creation of a new graduate course.
Wetterhahn, a chemistry professor, said the grant will benefit Dartmouth undergraduates because they may be able to assist professors with research.
Hamilton said, "All of us have undergraduates in our laboratories and we'll be developing a curriculum undergraduates would be encouraged to participate in."
Judith Jacobs, a DMS microbiologist, said "all of the people who are on this grant had, at one time or another, Women In Science Project students, so those students will probably be working on aspects of this project."
According to Dorothy Williams, who is the grants management officer for the National Institute for Environmental Health Services, "the scope and budget of Superfund grants are larger than average research grants."
"Grants were awarded based on scientific merit, funds available and relevance to the Superfund program," she said.
Barchowsky said he thinks the grant was given to Dartmouth because "there is a high concentration of people on campus interested in heavy metals and toxicity."
Wetterhahn said in a press release that the College is in an ideal location to study toxic metals.
"The Northeast is an ideal area for studying these pollutants since it represents the full range of extremes, from places contaminated by industrial wastes to pristine forests," she said. "Though they may be separated by hundreds of miles, pristine and developed sites are linked by processes that carry these metals ... into humans."
Hamilton said researchers agree toxic metals research could have important implications for human health.
"Eight of the 20 most toxic substances of concern to the EPA are heavy metal," Hamilton said.
It is a very far reaching and persistent problem," Hamilton said. "The other aspect of heavy metals is that because they can't be degraded in any way, they accumulate in animals and plants."
He said the researchers will examine arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and nickel, some of which may also be carcinogens.
"And a lot more people die of cardiovascular diseases and cancer than AIDS," he said.