Untargeted Identification of Priority Environmental Chemicals and Their Physical Protein Targets

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Impressive developments in environmental science over the past decades have raised the concern about the links between environmental pollution and increasing incidence of some diseases in Canada and worldwide. However, preventative assessment of the health risks of environmental chemicals leaves much to be desired since environmental matrices are incredibly complex mixtures of thousands of known and unknown chemicals. In fact, current routinely monitored chemicals only explain in an unbiased fashion, and then exploit this knowledge for improved environmental chemical management. We will support our pursuit by becoming experts in untargeted chemical analysis, and environmental chemical proteomics research. Specifically, untargeted chemical analysis methods will be developed for unbiased identification of chemicals in environmental mixtures; then these identified chemicals will be prioritized according to their persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicities; concurrently, a chemical proteomics platform will be established for proteome-wide identification of protein targets and toxic mechanisms of priority chemicals. Notably, the proposed research program will provide an unprecedented opportunity to assess the health risks of environmental chemicals in an unbiased fashion. This will strengthen current knowledge of links between environmental pollution and increasing incidence of some diseases in Canada. In addition to the societal and environmental benefits, the techniques generated from the proposed research will also lead to direct economic benefits to environmental science and the pharmaceutical industry. Importantly, the outcome of the proposed research program is more than published discoveries, it will also provide advanced training opportunities to students. Over the next five years, my group is expected to grow to approximately 7 graduate students and 2 postdoctoral fellows. Already as a new independent researcher, I have begun training of three students and two postdoctoral fellows. My early success in recruitment stems from our innovative research program, as well as students' enthusiasm to pursue their research goals, and learn technical skills (e.g. mass spectrometry, proteomics) and broader abilities (e.g. communication, leadership) that are critical to develop their future independent careers.