Exposure Science Core

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Exposure Science Core ABSTRACT The objective of the Texas A&M Superfund Research Center is to explore and develop descriptive models and tools that can predict the possible hazardous outcomes of chemical exposure during environmental emergencies and to produce powerful solutions which can mitigate the negative effects on human health. The ultimate goal of the Center is to contribute to decision-making capabilities for planning and control in emergency environmental contamination events. Exposure science is evolving rapidly in parallel with novel methods for hazard identification with a focus on solving the challenges of rapid detection of potentially harmful chemicals at low but biologically relevant concentrations. The overall goal of the Exposure Science Core is to address the needs of the Texas A&M University (TAMU) Superfund Research Center for novel analytical approaches in both exposure science and hazard identification under conditions of an environmental emergency contamination event. The Core is a partnership between Drs. Justin Teeguarden and Erin Baker at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Dr. Terry Wade at Texas A&M University. The Core will address this objective and enable exposure characterization of complex environmental exposures and mixtures by coordinating exposure science activities across the Center and (i) developing novel sample processing and analysis methods, (ii) translating these advances into practice for environmental health protection, and (iii) providing essential analytical support to the projects in the Center and beyond. The Exposure Science Core will coordinate exposure assessments across the Center by working very closely with Project 1 to characterize the real-world mixtures that will be used in other Projects and Cores, as well as it will ensure consistency and relevance of these estimates for use in toxicity testing (Projects 3 and 4), decision making (Decision Science Core), and effectiveness of hazard reduction (Project 2) and communication (Research Translation Core, Community Engagement Core). A suite of sensitive quantitative targeted analyses will be used to identify and quantify target contaminants of human health concern in the Galveston Bay/Houston Ship Channel. Building on these conventional analyses, global non-targeted analysis of samples using a RapidFire™ Solid Phase Extraction-Ion Mobility-Mass Spectrometry (SPE-IMS-MS) will be used to characterize previously unknown chemical exposures and environmentally relevant mixtures for toxicity testing. A novel computational chemical structure and identification pipeline developed by our team will be used to make new libraries and make provisional chemical identifications. These transformative scientific aims will advance the goals of all four projects and the overall Center goal of developing rapid, effective tools for disaster response related to human exposures.