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Danny Shen named to chair Department of Pharmacy
New project to study STDs in lesbian and bisexual women
Forum explores ways new technologies will affect medicine
UW researchers and students work on projects related to health and cleanup at nuclear sites
‘Health of Hanford’ conference planned in early November
UW researchers and students work on projects related to health and cleanup at nuclear sites
UW faculty, staff and students from several schools are collaborating in research related to cleanup of radioactive and chemical contamination at former nuclear weapon production sites, including the Hanford site in eastern Washington, through the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP).
Supported by a five-year, $30 million cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), CRESP is a partnership with a mission to develop research responsive to the broad range of stakeholders (those with a “stake” in the outcome) and tribal nations involved at the nuclear waste sites, particularly in relation to risk The project began in 1995.
In addition to the UW, other organizations that make up CRESP are the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, sponsored by the Rutgers University/State University of New Jersey complex, and the Institute for Evaluating Health Risks in Washington, D.C. More information on the consortium is on the Web site: http://www.cresp.org
Dr. Elaine Faustman, professor of environmental health in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine, is principal investigator for the UW component of the consortium; Dr. Thomas Leschine, associate professor of marine affairs and fisheries, is the UW co-principal investigator.
Some examples of CRESP projects at the UW:
Dr. Joel Massmann of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering collaborates with site contractors removing the contaminant carbon tetrachloride from soil in the Hanford 200 area. He and his graduate students have developed a computer model to describe contaminant migration through the soil during extraction. Dr. David Stensel and colleagues, also of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, are investigating bioremediation using microbes that degrade carbon tetrachloride to less toxic materials. This work complements Massmann’s research, because microbes can be used to treat contaminants extracted from the soil.
Michael Kern of the Department of Environmental Health and others at CRESP convene, facilitate and provide technical support to the Hanford Openness Workshops. This series of workshops, begun in 1997 and continuing through this year, has been designed to help the Department of Energy resolve issues about availability of information important to public health, the environment, understanding and decision-making at Hanford. The workshops are a collaboration among regional public interest groups, citizen representatives, Native American tribes, DOE-Richland, the Washington State Department of Ecology, the Oregon Office of Energy and CRESP. Additional information is on the workshops’ Web site: http://www.hanford.gov/boards/openness/
Elaine Faustman’s group collaborates with Dr. Timothy Takaro and colleagues in the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Program on research related to chronic beryllium disease, which has been identified among workers at DOE sites. This work includes medical monitoring of former Hanford workers, laboratory investigations to develop more sensitive analytical methods, examine cellular mechanisms of disease and identify biomarkers of susceptibility. Analysis based on this interest in beryllium biomarkers has been used to evaluate benefits that might result from proposed strategies for disease detection and prevention. This research provided a basis for CRESP to submit testimony and public comments on DOE’s proposed beryllium protection program.
Other Department of Environmental Health research develops methods and instrumentation to measure exposure to hazardous substances. Dr. Michael Yost’s group has refined an Open-Path Fourier Transform Infra-Red (OP-FTIR) system, a well-accepted optical remote sensing technology for measuring air contaminants. The group tested FTIR in the field by detecting gaseous emissions from the Hanford “tank farms,” very large tanks holding highly radioactive liquid wastes. The FTIR system offers the opportunity for real-time mapping of air pollutants, which can allow more comprehensive evaluations of risk to workers and others from gaseous emissions.
Dr. James Karr and colleagues at the School of Fisheries have developed measures that integrate many biological attributes to assess and communicate ecological health in aquatic ecosystems. UW researchers are investigating the adaptation of an index of biological integrity to terrestrial systems through field work at Hanford and the Idaho DOE site. These sites present an opportunity to examine a range of human impacts on an ecosystem: On one hand, many locations are contaminated with radioactive or chemical materials; at the same time, because buffer zones were established for security, Hanford and the Idaho site contain large regions relatively undisturbed since the 1940s. ¶
University Week
The faculty and staff publication of the University of Washington
uweek@u.washington.edu
October 21, 1999
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