UC Toxics News: Spring/Summer 2005
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Former TSR&TP Director Jerry Last in his early lab days.

TSR&TP Director John Knezovich kicked off the TSR&TP 18th Annual Research Symposium Friday evening by welcoming the 180 faculty, students, staff, and committee representatives in attendance. Knezovich introduced himself as the new director and gave a short presentation on his research interests as a scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and at UC Davis.

The evening concluded with a surprise tribute to former director Jerry Last illustrated by a musical slide show of entertaining pictures of Jerry from the 60s, 70s and 80s. Director Knezovich, former TSR&TP associate director Jim Hunt, UCOP Office of Research liaison Cathie Magowan, Jerry's son Michael, and Lisa Stevenson and Mika Pringle Tolson of the TSR&TP Director's Office talked about what Jerry has meant to them during his nearly 20 years of directing the program. To commemorate Last's contribution to the TSR&TP, Knezovich, Stevenson and Tolson presented him with a dress shirt embroidered with the TSR&TP logo and an engraved crystal plaque for his 19.5833 years of service.

Director John Knezovich presents Jerry Last with an award for his 20 years of service.

Saturday's program began with a poster session followed by two talks. Oliver Hankinson, director of the Toxic Mechanisms Lead Campus Program gave an overview of his program's recent activities. The lead campus will sponsor a workshop on Mechanisms of Toxicity of Air Pollutants October 27-29, 2005 at the Mission Inn in Riverside. The workshop is open to other TSR&TP affiliates to attend. Contact Lucile Sabal, lead campus coordinator for more information.

The lead campus program's focus is gene-environment interactions and Hankinson reported on some of the most recent projects on dioxin, chromium, benzene, and cadmium.

Gene transcription has been revolutionized in the past few years with new chromatin immunoprecipitation, RNA interference, and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) techniques. Using these techniques, trainees Song Wang and Tim Beischlag at UCLA have studied how dioxin induces the CYP1A1 gene. The team has discovered that dioxin triggers prolonged activation of these genes, which can cause cell proliferation and potentially cancer.

Ramune Reliene and Zhanna Kirpnick, two trainees in Robert Schiestl's lab at UCLA, have been studying chromium toxicity. Chromium-3 is used as a food supplement and commonly thought to be non-toxic. However, based on the data from the UCLA lab studies, "one should be encouraged not to ingest it", Hankinson said.

Trainee Scott Mondrala in David Eastmond's lab at UC Riverside has been looking into topoisomerase II inhibition as a mechanism for benzene's toxicity. The lab has found that metabolites of benzene interact with the topo II enzyme to inhibit it, resulting in DNA mutations which can lead to cancer.
Lisa Martin, a trainee in Michael Collins' lab at UCLA is mapping the cdm gene to study its relationship to cadmium, which is known to cause birth defects. She has identified a candidate gene conferring resistance to cadmium induced testicular toxicity.

For a bit of fun, a group of graduate students involved in the lead campus program organized a flag football team and called themselves the "Toxic Substances". Each member designed their own t-shirt with a different toxic substance on it. The team proved their toxicity and won the intramural championship competition at the fall 2004 games.

Dr. Jeff Wong provides some practical advice for TSR&TP graduate students at the Symposium.

Hankinson ended his talk by expressing appreciation for the TSR&TP funding. The Toxic Mechanisms associate director David Eastmond couldn't attend the symposium, but passed on his message that the lead campus has been an increasingly important source of support for the Environmental Toxicology program at UC Riverside and has allowed for more recruiting, training and support for students interested in the mechanisms and risks associated with the toxicity of environmental chemicals.

Hankinson echoed Eastmond's sentiments and said that the TSR&TP has made a significant impact at UC Riverside and UC Los Angeles and that the graduate program in Molecular Toxicology at UCLA would not have expanded without TSR&TP support.

Dr. Jeff Wong, Deputy Director of Science, Pollution Prevention and Technology Development at the California Department of Toxic Substances Control gave a keynote address focusing on advice for graduate students entering the working world. Wong received his degree in Pharmacology and Toxicology from UC Davis and shared many practical tips based on his broad career experience:

Learn to deal with paperwork. There will be lots of it in your life and the faster you move it, the better off you will be in any career.

We live in the middle of the C. Many of the people you will work with were C students. You have to be able to explain your research to people in the middle. Your ability to communicate, not just through journal articles, is key to making your science have impact.

As scientists we have to help people understand that oversimplification of problems leads to overly simple solutions that don't work. You may be smart, but don't forget common sense.

Keep in mind that the results of your research may be used in regulatory policy and may end up costing people money. Be diligent in making sure your data are correct.

Be careful what you write in e-mail because it may end up on the front-page news.
Think about problems outside your own specialized area of research, such as the influence of alcohol, toxic cleanup, and nuclear waste disposal. We don't have complete data in these areas and your contributions could have many practical applications that benefit society.

Wong's advice for expert testimony: Know your data well and know and acknowledge your limitations.

And his final advice - Adapt and evolve, or face extinction! Be nimble on your feet about your ideas of science, and be prepared to be more than a scientist.

 

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