Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health

伍兹霍尔海洋与人类健康中心是一项为期五年的努力，旨在解决气候变化如何影响有害藻华（HAB）动态和人类暴露于HAB毒素，这是一个严重的全球人类健康威胁。总体目标是通过加强了解气候和海洋过程如何影响产生毒素的有害生物的密度和分布，以及了解即使接触少量有害生物的强效神经毒素，特别是在生命的易感阶段，也可能对健康造成的风险，从而保护公众健康。三个不同的研究项目将探讨水华发生的环境控制，建立数字模型来预测人类在不断变化的气候条件下暴露于毒素，并研究有害藻华毒素对大脑的影响。该中心的行政核心将连接这些项目，鼓励公开讨论规划，整合，沟通和增强不同的观点，并提供严格的评估程序的各个方面的进展。该中心的社区参与核心将促进研究与教育的整合，以及资源管理人员和其他利益相关者的参与。该中心将提高公共卫生界对新出现的有害生物问题的认识，并为K-12教室和卫生保健提供者开发新的教育材料和互动活动。该中心由美国国家科学基金会海洋科学部和美国国家环境健康科学研究所（NIEHS）共同支持，将重点研究两个关键的赤潮分类群：链状亚历山大藻（Alexandiumcatenella），它产生导致麻痹性贝类中毒（PSP）的石房蛤毒素，以及假菱形藻属（Pseudo-nitzschiaspp.），它们产生软骨藻酸，导致失忆性贝类中毒（ASP）综合症;两者都在地理上扩张。由申请人开发并在自然环境中原位应用的新颖的、有针对性的、有效的和数据丰富的采样方法已经揭示了A. catenella种群动态，并确定了可能的新的气候联系有毒Pseudo-nitzschia物种。项目1将进一步研究影响这些有害生物的生理和气候变量，这些变量可能是种群适应不同生境和不同环境状况的基础。项目2将把这些关于水华调控的新的基本见解纳入气候-人口耦合模型，以预测未来气候情景下的赤潮威胁，这是量化这种经常性公共卫生威胁的未来风险的关键一步。在斑马鱼模型的生物医学研究中，项目3已经确定发育中的大脑中的髓鞘形成是软骨藻酸的目标。该项目将使用转基因斑马鱼和单细胞RNA测序来确定体内斑马鱼胚胎中软骨藻酸，石房蛤毒素和氰基毒素anatoxin-a的细胞特异性机制，并将使用体外人类iPSC衍生的3D脑系统来阐明毒素对人类细胞中神经和神经胶质细胞分化的影响。不同的有害藻华毒素共同暴露的影响将在生命的早期阶段和成人进行检查。通过这种多学科的合作和综合方法，所有三个项目将海洋过程与人类接触联系起来，帮助确定易感人群的接触情况，并预测气候变化的影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

The Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health is a five-year effort aimed at addressing how changing climate could influence harmful algal bloom (HAB) dynamics and human exposure to HAB toxins, a serious and global human health threat. The overall objective is to protect public health through enhanced understanding of how climate and oceanic processes affect the intensity and distribution of toxin-producing HABs and to understand the potential health risks from exposure even to low levels of their potent neurotoxins, especially during susceptible stages of life. Three distinct research projects will explore environmental controls of bloom occurrence, create numerical models to predict the exposure of human population to toxins under changing climate conditions, and study the effects of HAB toxins on the brain. The administrative core of the Center will connect these projects, encouraging open discussion of planning, integration, communication and enhancing diverse perspectives, and providing rigorous evaluation of progress in all aspects of the program. The Center’s Community Engagement Core will facilitate integration of the research with education and engagement of resource managers and other stakeholders. The Center will improve awareness of emerging HAB issues for the public health community and develop new educational materials and interactive activities for K-12 classrooms, and for health care providers. The Center is jointly supported by NSF’s Division of Ocean Sciences and by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).The Center will focus on two key HAB taxa: Alexandrium catenella, which produces the saxitoxins responsible for paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP), and Pseudo-nitzschia spp., which produce domoic acid responsible for amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP) syndrome; both are expanding geographically. Novel, targeted, efficient, and data-rich sampling approaches developed by the applicants and applied in situ in natural settings have revealed new controls of A. catenella population dynamics, and have identified possible new climate links regarding toxic Pseudo-nitzschia species. Project 1 will examine further the physiological and climatic variables affecting these HABs, which may underlie population adaptation in different habitats and different environmental regimes. Project 2 will incorporate these new and fundamental insights on bloom regulation into coupled climate-population models to predict HAB threats under future climate scenarios, a key step toward being able to quantify future risks from this recurrent public health threat. In biomedical studies with the zebrafish model, Project 3 has identified myelination in the developing brain as a target of domoic acid. This project will use transgenic zebrafish and single-cell RNA-sequencing to identify the cell-specific mechanisms underlying effects of domoic acid, saxitoxin, and the cyanotoxin anatoxin-a in zebrafish embryos in vivo and will use human iPSC-derived 3D brain systems in vitro to elucidate toxin effects on neural and glial cell differentiation in human cells. Effects of different HAB toxin co-exposures will be examined in early life stages and adults. Through this multidisciplinary collaborative and integrated approach, all three projects will link oceanic processes to human exposure, helping to define the exposure of susceptible human subpopulations and predict the effects of a changing climate.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.