UNM Metals Exposure and Toxicity Assessment on tribal Lands in the Southwest (METALS) Superfund Research Program

金属总览 西南SRP中心部落土地UNM金属暴露及毒性评价 (金属)重点关注纳瓦霍民族的&gt；500个废弃铀矿(AUM)，以及纳瓦霍国家的杰克比勒矿 拉古纳·普韦布洛是冷战的遗产，目前正在根据CERCLA进行评估。它们代表&>4500个AUM 在美国西部的15个地区，居住着我们1/2的土著人口。在第一阶段， 金属，我们的团队与我们的土著合作伙伴密切合作，以确定自采矿以来 从20世纪40年代开始，数百万吨废物中金属混合物的风化产生了纳米颗粒 具有不同的矿物学特征。虽然这些纳米颗粒对废物的流动性和毒性都有影响， 由于严重的数据差距，它们不会被考虑在优先级排序或清理中。我们的健康研究已经 研究表明，暴露在这些金属混合物中会增加高血压、多种慢性疾病的患病率 疾病、免疫功能障碍和自身抗体的产生。而约25%的人口没有表现出 暴露的证据，生物监测证实，相当于%的年龄显示暴露于高达12的集群 金属的浓度明显高于美国其他人口。我们的社区合作伙伴 方法和强大的团队整合，包括社区合作伙伴，使我们的临床设计 科学合理和尊重文化的干预措施，我们有很高的参与率 和合规性。Metals的第二阶段将建立在我们强大的社区合作伙伴关系基础上，通过以下方式推动我们的研究 他们的需求，以及用单原子、科学状态、透射电子显微镜都能回答 关于颗粒物再分布影响农业安全的社区问题，并了解 机械尺度上的再悬浮、环境流动性和植物吸收过程以告知风险 还原。我们对多种暴露途径的确认，以及金属诱导的炎症和 氧化应激导致我们研究摄取和吸入在社区暴露中的作用。 这些研究将探索高剂量暴露于肺和肠道免疫调节细胞的可能性 改变系统免疫功能，告知设计更有针对性的干预措施。我们对……作用的认识 植物/真菌在转化环境金属混合物方面的共生作用使我们与 新墨西哥州国家塞维莱塔长期生态研究计划开发和测试 基于自然真菌群落平衡的真菌生物反应器及其与地球化学的相互作用 变量作为一种补救策略。这些补救方法提供了一种新的战略，以克服 细菌生物反应器在我们的有毒环境中无效，并产生可持续的、成本效益高的产品 保护具有重要文化意义的关键资源的解决方案。我们的团队将在我们强大的合作伙伴关系的基础上 与社区、研究人员、临床医生、部落和联邦政策制定者建立共同对话，由 我们以解决方案为导向的团队以科学为基础，在社区、临床和政策层面为降低风险提供信息。

OVERALL Summary METALS The UNM Metal Exposure and Toxicity Assessment on tribal Lands of the Southwest SRP Center (METALS) focuses on >500 abandoned uranium mines (AUMs) on Navajo Nation, and the Jackpile Mine on Laguna Pueblo, a legacy of the Cold War now being assessed under CERCLA. They represent >4500 AUMs in the 15 Western US that are home to >1/2 of our Indigenous population. During the inaugural phase of METALS, our team worked in close partnership with our Indigenous partners to determine that since mining began in the 1940s, weathering of metal mixtures in the millions of tons of waste has produced nanoparticles of varying mineralogy. While these nanoparticles have implications for both mobility and toxicity of the waste, they are not considered in prioritization or clean-up due to significant data gaps. Our health studies have shown that exposures to these metal mixtures increase the prevalence of hypertension, multiple chronic diseases, and immune dysfunction, and autoantibody production. While ~25% of the population shows no evidence of exposures, biomonitoring confirms an equivalent %age show exposure to clusters of up to 12 metals at significantly higher concentrations than the rest of the US population. Our community-partnered approach and strong team integration inclusive of community partners has allowed our design of clinical interventions that are scientifically sound and respectful of culture, in which we have high rates of participation and compliance. Phase 2 of METALS will build on our strong community partnerships to drive our research by their needs, and use single atom, state of the science, transmission electron microscopy to both answer community questions on agricultural safety as impacted by particulate redistribution, and understand the processes of resuspension, environmental mobility, and plant uptake at a mechanistic scale to inform risk reduction. Our confirmation of multiple routes of exposures, and evidence of metals-induced inflammation and oxidative stress lead us to examine contributions of ingestion and inhalation within community exposures. These studies will explore the potential for high-dose exposures to immune regulatory cells in lung and gut to alter systemic immune function, informing design of more targeted intervention. Our recognition of the role of plant/fungi symbiosis in transformation of environmental metal mixtures has led to our collaboration with the national Sevilleta Long Term Ecological Research program in New Mexico in development and testing of fungal bioreactors based in the balance of native fungal communities and their interactions with geochemical variables as a remediation strategy. These remediation approaches provide a novel strategy to overcome the ineffectiveness of bacterial bioreactors in our oxic environment and produce sustainable, cost-effective solutions to protect key resources of cultural importance. Our team will build on our strong partnerships to build common dialogue with communities, researchers, clinicians, tribal and federal policy makers, informed by our solution-oriented team science to inform risk reduction at community, clinical and policy levels.