A group of Dartmouth scientists has received $15 million from the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to study the effects of toxic metals on human health -- one of the largest research grants in the College's history.
The project will be directed by Joshua Hamilton, Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Dartmouth Medical School, while Carol Folt, a biology professor at the College of Arts and Sciences, will serve as associate director.
Chosen from over 50 institutions which applied for the grant, Dartmouth will receive the funding along with 16 other colleges and universities across the country.
"We are pleased and proud to have Dartmouth recognized as one of the country's centers of excellence in metals research," Dartmouth Provost Susan Prager said. "The research project represents a very successful collaboration between science faculty at the College and Medical School."
The five-year grant, which comes from the National Institute's Superfund Basic Research Program, will be used specifically to study heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury and lead that have contaminated Superfund cleanup sites.
The importance of the research is heightened by the dangerous nature of the toxic substances -- instead of breaking down or dissipating, they accumulate in certain places in the environment.
Although people are most often exposed to these contaminants while working at waste sites, there are other possible methods of exposure, such as mercury in fish and lead in tap water.
This year's grant follows on the heels of Dartmouth's first Superfund grant which was awarded five years ago. The College's ability to secure the first grant was largely due to the efforts of former chemistry professor Karen Wetterhahn -- who died tragically in a 1997 mercury-poisoning accident at the College.
"Our ability to carry this work forward at such a competitive level is a great tribute to Karen Wetterhaun," Hamilton said. "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 since grown into a multi-disciplinary project that involves over 60 Dartmouth researchers from 14 departments who will be studying four major areas of research.
Specific topics to be studied include 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 especially pressing element of the project is research on the effects of arsenic in groundwater in New Hampshire. Over a quarter of private wells in the state have concentrations of arsenic that are higher than new levels recommended by the EPA.
Dartmouth researchers have succeeded in debunking previous beliefs that the strangely high levels of the pollutant were caused by human meddling with the environment, instead showing that they are primarily due to a natural granite formation found in New Hampshire and Maine.
