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Two
Barnard Environmental Scientists Part of $16.9 Million Awarded
Study Examining Health Effects of Arsenic in Ground Water
Barnard
faculty Martin Stute and Brian Mailloux are
part of a multidisciplinary team of researchers—from
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, Columbia
University's Mailman School of Public Health, and the Center
for International Earth Science Information Network—who
have led ongoing investigations into the health effects and
geochemistry of arsenic and manganese exposure in ground water.
The research team has just received a $16.9 million award
from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
to continue their investigations.
Stute,
associate professor of environmental science at Barnard and
an adjunct research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory, specializes in hydrology and groundwater dating.
Mailloux, assistant professor of environmental science at
Barnard, specializes in groundwater microbiology.
The five-year,
$16.9 million competitive grant renewal from the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Superfund
Basic Research Program (SBRP) will enable the team of scientists
to conduct research concerning anthropogenic and naturally
occurring sources of human exposure to arsenic and manganese
in New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Maine. The award
also allows for a continuation of the group's landmark work
in Bangladesh, where tens of millions of people have been
chronically exposed to naturally occurring arsenic in drinking
water.
Although
arsenic is an environmental carcinogen that affects millions
of people worldwide, at high levels such as those found in
Bangladesh it is also associated with a constellation of other
adverse health effects, including diseases of the cardiovascular,
pulmonary, endocrine, and nervous systems. Arsenic contamination
of groundwater and soils is associated with serious and widespread
public health, mitigation, and environmental policy problems.
As such, public health intervention strategies to reduce arsenic
exposure are critical, these researchers say.
For more
on Barnard’s department of environmental science, visit
www.barnard.edu/envsci
To learn
more about the research described above, visit
http://superfund.ciesin.columbia.edu
posted 08.03.06
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