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Deborah Cory-Slechta: Research Pointing to Herbicide and Parkinson’s Association is 'Overwhelming'

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

The professor of Environmental Health Sciences appeared on ABC News’ Nightline to discuss the growing scientific evidence linking the widely used herbicide paraquat to Parkinson’s disease and efforts to undermine concerns about the chemical’s health risks (Part 1, Part 2). Read about how URMC researchers are leading efforts to understand how environmental exposure to chemicals is driving a rise in rates of Parkinson’s, making it the world’s fastest growing neurological disease.

Debra Cory-Slechta Explains How Wildfire Smoke and Air Pollution can Harm the Brain

Thursday, August 3, 2023

In an interview with Rick Woychik, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the professor of Environmental Medicine shares how research into how fine air particles impact the brain is transforming our understanding of neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. Woychik interviewed Cory-Slechta after seeing her presentation at the first Human Health and the Environment Research Symposium at the Medical Center in June, where he was a guest speaker.

Read More: Debra Cory-Slechta Explains How Wildfire Smoke and Air Pollution can Harm the Brain

Halting the Rise of Parkinson’s

Monday, April 24, 2023

Quality of life, health, and longevity are being increasingly tied to someone’s zip code rather than their genetic code. Cancer, heart disease, neurodegenerative disorders, and even our ability to fight infection are linked to the myriad of chemicals we are exposed to, often unwittingly, over the course of our lives. The University of Rochester’s leadership in the field of environmental medicine stretches back to toxicology research programs developed at the University under the Manhattan Project. These programs also served as the basis for the formation of a NIEHS Center of Excellence in environmental toxicology and health that is one of the oldest in the country celebrating 50 years of sustained funding. This foundation and the decades of work that followed—coupled with the recognition that the public health threat requires a collaborative commitment to research, education, and community engagement—led to the creation of the new Institute for Human Health and the Environment.

Paige Lawrence, PhD, the Wright Family Research Professor and chair of the Department of Environmental Medicine, is the founding director of the new Institute. “Genetics only explaining 10 to 15 percent of human health, which leaves the rest to the environment,” said Lawrence. “If we really want to have an impact on health, environmental influences need to be front and center.”

The new Institute will help power a team of neurologists, neuroscientists, toxicologists, epidemiologists, and researchers at the University of Rochester who are examining the impact of environmental chemical exposure on the brain. One disease in particular stands out. Parkinson’s is the fastest growing neurodegenerative disease in the world, outpacing even Alzheimer’s, and a growing number of scientists are linking the disease’s rise to air pollution, pesticides, and a ubiquitous chemical pollutant.

Up the nose it goes

Air pollution is associated with many health problems, including asthma, heart disease, stroke, low birth weight, and inflammation. While epidemiological studies have hinted at the link between air pollution and neurological disorders like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, the route these chemicals use to make their way into the brain, and the damage caused once there, was until recently poorly understood.

“We’ve known that air pollution has effects on the heart and the lung for a very long time, but it's really only been in about the past ten years that attention has been directed to its effects on the brain,” said Debbie Cory-Slechta, PhD, a professor of Environmental Medicine, Neuroscience, and Public Health Sciences. Cory-Slechta’s colleagues at the University of Rochester, Guenter Oberdoerster, PhD, and Alison Elder, PhD, were among the first to show that ultra-fine air pollution particles, called PM0.1, are able to hitch a ride directly into the brain via the nasal passage and olfactory nerves, bypassing the brain’s normal defenses.

Read More: Halting the Rise of Parkinson’s

Researchers look for link between air pollution and brain disease

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

 

 

Deborah Cory-Slechta, a professor of environmental medicine, of public health sciences, and of neuroscience, discusses findings from researchers trying to figure out how much, and to what extent, airborne contaminants are linked to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Dr. Deborah Cory-Slechta receives the 2022 Susan B. Anthony Lifetime Achievement Award

Wednesday, April 6, 2022

Congratulations to Dr. Deborah Cory-Slechta, Professor of Environmental Medicine, who is the recipient of the 2022 Susan B. Anthony Lifetime Achievement Award!

The Susan B. Anthony Lifetime Achievement Award, established in 1997 by the Susan B. Anthony Center, honors and celebrates women whose lives have been enriched by their years at the University of Rochester and who have, in turn, inspired other women to advance and lead. Nominees are faculty, staff, trustees and/or alumnae who have achieved significant professional stature and influence, who have a commendable, trailblazing body of work, and who have used their experience and skills to help other women advance as leaders.

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation.– Susan B. Anthony

Deborah Cory-Slechta Receives the 2021 SOT Distinguished Toxicology Scholar Award

Thursday, February 11, 2021

Deborah Cory-Slechta, PhD, has been awarded the 2021 SOT Distinguished Toxicology Scholar Award in honor of her scientific achievements and contributions to public health in the fields of environmental health sciences and toxicology.

Dr. Cory-Slechta is currently a Professor of environmental medicine, pediatrics, and public health sciences at the University of Rochester Medical Center, where she trains and mentors a number of scholastically recognized students via hands-on, project-oriented teaching, as well as offering support and mentorship to junior faculty members. She also is the Deputy Director of the Environmental Health Sciences Center at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Dr. Cory-Slechta is a world-renowned behavioral psychologist and neurotoxicologist, and her work has provided mechanistic support for understanding the consequences of lead exposure in developing animals and humans. Her studies combine powerful hypothesis-generating screening tools with rigorous hypothesis-driven research questions to systematically test xenobiotic-induced neurotoxicity. Dr. Cory-Slechta has championed behavioral batteries for the assessment of neurotoxicity, developing new methodologies and asserting the importance of early changes in behavior as markers of aberrant neurodevelopment and neurotoxicity. She developed sensitive behavioral tasks to enable translation and validation of her animal work to human populations, which has significantly contributed to the recognition that levels of lead exposure previously thought of as safe are likely causing damage to children, particularly those that have additional risk factors. Dr. Cory-Slechta's studies have led to a paradigm shift and recognition by federal agencies of the necessity to include developmental neurotoxicity studies in the assessment of ill effects of xenobiotics, particularly as they pertain to the nervous system.

Dr. Cory-Slechta's scientific influence is demonstrated by an enormous number of invited research presentations worldwide as well as her sustained publication repertoire, which includes over 190 published manuscripts in high-impact journals. In addition, her laboratory since its establishment has received continual funding by the National Institutes of Health, a testament to her outstanding leadership and research.

Since joining SOT in 1983, Dr. Cory-Slechta has served as Chair of the SOT Awards Committee; as a member of the Education and Nominating Committees; as Councilor of the Metals Specialty Section; and as Councilor and President of the Neurotoxicology Specialty Section. Her efforts were recognized through her receipt of the 2017 Neurotoxicology Specialty Section Distinguished Neurotoxicologist Award. In addition to service to SOT, Dr. Cory-Slechta is on the Editorial Boards of Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, Toxicology, and NeuroToxicology and is a reviewer for a multitude of study sections for the National Institutes of Health, US Environmental Protection Agency, and other granting bodies, among numerous other institutional commitments.

Congratulations, Debbie!

Read More: Deborah Cory-Slechta Receives the 2021 SOT Distinguished Toxicology Scholar Award

Inhaled paraquat enters brain, impairs sense of smell in male mice

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Researchers funded by NIEHS reported that inhalation of the widely used pesticide paraquat reduced the sense of smell in male mice for several months after exposure. Moreover, the chemical entered the brain and other tissues. These results underscore the importance of studying the effects of inhalation of neurotoxicants, to protect public health.

Loss of sense of smell, or olfactory impairment, is an early sign of Parkinson's disease. The findings, published Dec. 29, 2020, in the journal Toxicological Sciences, suggest paraquat may contribute to such neurodegenerative diseases.

Researchers at the University of Rochester modeled an inhalation of low concentrations of paraquat. Using the university's Inhalation Core facility, they exposed mice to aerosolized paraquat. The team then measured levels of the pesticide in lung, kidney, and four regions of the brain — olfactory bulb, striatum, midbrain, and cerebellum.

"Inhalation can provide a direct route of entry to the brain," explained first author Timothy Anderson. "If you inhale something and it goes into your nose, it can actually enter the neurons responsible for sense of smell, and travel into the brain." Anderson is a graduate student at the University of Rochester lab of Deborah Cory-Slechta, Ph.D.,where the study was conducted. Cory-Slechta is deputy director of the university's NIEHS-funded Environmental Health Sciences Center.

Co-author Kevin Welle measured the highest brain levels in the olfactory bulb, suggesting paraquat entered the brain through nasal-olfactory neurons.

"The sex-dependent olfactory impairment observed after paraquat [PQ] inhalation exposure is intriguing and parallels important features of Parkinson's disease [PD], including early loss of sense of smell and greater prevalence in males," said Jonathan Hollander, Ph.D.,health scientist administrator in the NIEHS Genes, Environment, and Health Branch. Hollander oversees research grants for neurodegenerative diseases and other areas.

"Given that paraquat is a known risk factor for PD, and inhalation is a prevalent source of exposure, this study may lead to a more useful animal model of PQ-induced neurodegeneration," he added.

Read More: Inhaled paraquat enters brain, impairs sense of smell in male mice

Air pollution might be the new lead

Thursday, April 5, 2018

Sometimes air pollution is easy to see. It billows off the top of smoke stacks, and out the tailpipes of cars zooming down the highway. Misty smog hangs in the air in cities like Delhi, Beijing, and Los Angeles, fracturing sunlight into a muted haze.

Most of the time, though, dirty air just looks like air. About 92 percent of the world's population, and more than half the people in the United States, live in areas with unhealthy air quality. The World Health Organization calls air pollution the world's "largest single environmental health risk," and it leads to the premature deaths of millions annually. It's a major public health problem for reasons you might expect: breathing in dirty air isn't good for your lungs, and the the connection between the lungs and the cardiovascular system means it puts pressure on your heart, too.

But it's increasingly clear that the effects of air pollution aren't constrained to body parts below the shoulders—they can hurt the brain in a whole host of ways, many of which researchers are still trying to understand. One major area of interest? The way exposure to polluted air can affect the cognitive development of babies and children. Researchers aren't shocked to find that an environmental toxin could harm young brains, because they've seen it happen before.

"To me, air pollution is kind of the next lead, in a way," says

Read More: Air pollution might be the new lead

Air pollution can make kids behave badly

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

When wildfires started raging through southern California this month, Diana Younan warned her family members living in the path of the smoke to stay inside, as much as possible. Fires send air pollution levels soaring, filling the air with tiny particles. Younan, who studies environmental health at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, knows the damage those tiny particles can do.

“It’s very well known that air pollution can affect respiratory function or health. But it’s not as well known that it can also affect the brain,” says Younan. Over the past decade, scientists started to note mounting evidence that suggests inhaling polluted air is toxic to the brain. That is slowly being linked to behavior, particularly for children and adolescents.

It’s similar, Younan says, to the way childhood exposure to lead—which used to be used in paint and gas—was eventually connected to behavioral problems. Some scientists even suspect that the decline in crime seen in the U.S. (and many nations) since the 1990s can be connected to the removal of lead from gasoline. “Lead is what pioneered the whole research on environmental risk factors,” she says.

In an analysis of data from nearly 700 children, Younan and her team found that kids in Los Angeles who were exposed to more air pollution over the course of adolescence were more likely to engage in delinquent behavior. The research was published today in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. It also found that the same amount of pollution exposure had a stronger effect on behavior when kids had bad relationships with their parents, or when their mothers exhibited signs of depression.

Deborah Cory-Slechta, a professor of environmental medicine at the University of Rochester who wasn't involved in the new study, started her career by looking at lead exposure. But in the past few years, she’s moved towards research on air pollution. At the beginning, she was skeptical that pollution could impact the brain. “But it was amazing what we started to find,” Cory-Slechta says. “Everyone has been surprised, to say the least, at how dramatic some of these effects can be.”

Cory-Slechta studies the effect of air pollution on animal models, and says that the behavioral changes she sees in those studies seem to match onto the type of delinquent behavior observed in Younan’s longitudinal study. “Even at relatively low levels of exposure [in animals], we see changes in behavior,” Cory-Slechta says. “Things like impulsivity, which can relate to delinquent behavior.”

Read More: Air pollution can make kids behave badly

Cory-Slechta Named Distinguished Neurotoxicologist 2017

Monday, February 13, 2017

Photo of Dr. Deborah Cory-SlechtaThe Society of Toxicology (SOT) Neurotoxicology Specialty Section (NTSS) Awards Committee has selected Dr. Deborah Cory-Slechta as the recipient of the Distinguished Neurotoxicologist Award. This award will be presented at the NTSS Reception that will be held on Wednesday, March 15, 2017 at the Hilton Baltimore Key Ballroom 6.

Dr. Cory-Slechta has demonstrated a life-long commitment to neurotoxicology. She has been a pioneer in championing neurotoxicology and behavioral science, and in exploring the interactions of chemical and non-chemical stressors to understand the complex etiology of behavioral diseases. This research is highlighted, for example, in experimental work confirming that low-level lead exposure alters neurodevelopment, which was highly influential in setting federal guidelines for developmental lead exposures. Her more recent research including that on the interactions between air pollution exposure and socioeconomic stress on neurodevelopment also promises to be highly influential. In addition, Dr. Cory-Slechta has served extensively in a variety of administrative roles including as Department Chair, Institute Director, and Dean for Research at two prominent academic programs on occupational and environmental health. She also has served on numerous federal advisory panels and as an Officer and President of the NTSS. This overall record of research accomplishments and service marks a singularly distinguished career in neurotoxicology that is recognized by this award.

The committee considered three superb nominations for the Distinguished Neurotoxicologist Award. The review panel (Drs. William Boyes (chair), Michelle Block, Aaron Bowman, Steven Lasley, and Marion Ehrich) carefully evaluated these nominations relative to contributions to the science of neurotoxicology, the use of neurotoxicological science in making risk assessment and regulatory decisions, and service to the NTSS and the field of neurotoxicology. All three nominees were outstanding, exceptionally accomplished, and each has made strong contributions to neurotoxicology. Unfortunately, in any one year we are able to select only one individual for the Distinguished Neurotoxicologist Award.

The Neurotoxicology Specialty Section (NTSS) has a rich history of outstanding scientists advancing our field through research, regulatory, and service accomplishments. In the past, NTSS has recognized four scientists as Distinguished Investigators in the field of Neurotoxicology from 2001 through 2006 and Dr. Joan Cranmer in 2008 for Distinguished Service to Neurotoxicology. However, despite many accomplished scientists contributing greatly and in a variety of ways to the field, this award has been dormant since 2008. In an effort to establish a continuous mechanism to acknowledge the top leaders in our field, the NTSS leadership reinstated a career recognition award, now called the Distinguished Neurotoxicologist Award. This year, we established clear criteria, defined procedures, encouraged nominations, and convened a committee to evaluate applications. For those interested, the details of this process can be found on the NTSS website.

Congratulations to Dr. Cory-Slechta!