News

Dr. B. Paige Lawrence

At this year's Society of Toxicology meeting, Dr. B. Paige Lawrence was awarded the Outstanding Senior Immunotoxicologist Award presented by the Immunotoxicology Specialty Section (ISS). The award is given to a Senior Investigator whose work has made significant contributions to the field of Immunotoxicology. Dr. Lawrence is Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental Medicine and Director of the Environmental Health Sciences Center. Her research addresses problems of human health and how our environment influences our health. Much of her work focuses on the impact of pollutants on our ability to fight infections, such as influenza viruses. Other work centers on understanding how signals from the environment affect proper development in early life, and how these developmental changes adversely impact health later in life.

She is a member of the Society of Toxicology, American Association of Immunologists, and American Association for the Advancement of Scientists, and currently serves on the Editorial Boards for Toxicological Sciences, Toxicology, The American Journal of Physiology - Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, The Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, and The American Journal of Reproductive Immunology and in 2020 was named one of three deputy editors of Environmental Health Perspectives. She provides peer review service to the National Institutes of Health and to other research organizations and agencies.

Congratulations, Paige!

On 16 June 2020, EHP welcomed three Deputy Editors, Dana Boyd Barr, Manolis Kogevinas, and Paige Lawrence, on their first official day of service in their new positions. Editor-in-Chief (EIC) Joel Kaufman, MD, MPH, introduced the new Deputy Editor role and named the appointees in a recent webinar with the Board of Associate Editors.

As recognized leaders in their respective disciplines of exposure science, environmental epidemiology, and experimental toxicology, the Deputy Editors will act as ambassadors to colleagues in their scientific communities to ensure that EHP continues to publish the most influential environmental health research. With a wealth of leadership, editorial, and peer review experience at EHP and other journals, the new Deputy Editors are expected to complement existing editorial workflows.

Working closely with the EIC and EHP Science Editors, they will evaluate new and revised manuscripts, participate in triage and interim editorial decisions, and collaborate with Associate Editors to oversee peer review. The Deputy Editors will also provide leadership for the consideration of submissions in their areas of expertise.

The new Deputy Editor role represents the next step in changes to the journal's operating structure that began when Joel assumed the EIC role in February 2020. As the first offsite EIC, Joel maintains his faculty position at the University of Washington while serving the journal.

IMV Ph.D. Graduate Student, Cassandra Houser (Paige Lawrence's Lab) received one of ten AAI Young Investigator Awards at the 22nd Annual Upstate New York Immunology Conference. The conference this year took place October 28th at Albany Medical Center. The award is based on the top poster abstracts submitted based on scientific rigor and significance to the field of immunology.

Congrats Cassandra!

New research shows that maternal exposure to a common and ubiquitous form of industrial pollution can harm the immune system of offspring and that this injury is passed along to subsequent generations, weakening the body's defenses against infections such as the influenza virus.

The study was led by Paige Lawrence, Ph.D., with the University of Rochester Medical Center's (URMC) Department of Environmental Medicine and appears in the Cell Press journal iScience. The research was conducted in mice, whose immune system function is similar to humans.

"The old adage 'you are what you eat' is a touchstone for many aspects of human health," said Lawrence. "But in terms of the body's ability to fights off infections, this study suggests that, to a certain extent, you may also be what your great-grandmother ate."

While other studies have shown that environmental exposure to pollutants can have effects on the reproductive, respiratory, and nervous system function across multiple generations, the new research shows for the first time that the immune system is impacted as well.

This multigenerational weakening of the immune system could help explain variations that are observed during seasonal and pandemic flu episodes. Annual flu vaccines provide some people more protection than others, and during pandemic flu outbreaks some people get severely ill, while others are able to fight off the infection. While age, virus mutations, and other factors can explain some of this variation, they do not fully account for the diversity of responses to flu infection found in the general population.

"When you are infected or receive a flu vaccine, the immune system ramps up the production of specific kinds of white blood cells in response," said Lawrence. "The larger the response, the larger the army of white blood cells, enhancing the ability of the body to successfully fight off an infection. Having a smaller size army — which we see across multiple generations of mice in this study — means that you're at risk for not fighting the infection as effectively."

In the study, researchers exposed pregnant mice to environmentally relevant levels of a chemical called dioxin, which, like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), is a common by-product of industrial production and waste incineration, and is also found in some consumer products. These chemicals find their way into the food system where they are eventually consumed by humans. Dioxins and PCBs bio-accumulate as they move up the food chain and are found in greater concentrations in animal-based food products. The scientists observed the production and function of cytotoxic T cells — white blood cells that defend the body against foreign pathogens, such as viruses and bacteria, and seek out and destroy cells with mutations that could lead to cancer — was impaired when the mice were infected with influenza A virus.

Did you know that your great-grandmother's exposure to industrial pollution may affect how you respond to respiratory viral infections? A recent paper published in iScience, by Christina Post, a graduate student in Toxicology and Dr. Paige Lawrence, the Chair of Environmental Medicine shows how a common industrial pollutant called dioxin weakens how immune cells respond to influenza A virus infections when given to pregnant mice. Surprisingly, the changes in how the offspring respond to infection were passed on for two more generations! The findings are important because they suggest ancestral environmental exposures may contribute to the efficacy of annual flu vaccinations (maybe place the Futurity link here or not use it at all?).

New research shows that maternal exposure to a common and ubiquitous form of industrial pollution can harm the immune system of offspring and that this injury is passed along to subsequent generations, weakening the body's defenses against infections such as the influenza virus.

The study was led by Paige Lawrence, Ph.D., with the University of Rochester Medical Center's (URMC) Department of Environmental Medicine and appears in the Cell Press journal iScience. The research was conducted in mice, whose immune system function is similar to humans.

"The old adage 'you are what you eat' is a touchstone for many aspects of human health," said Lawrence. "But in terms of the body's ability to fights off infections, this study suggests that, to a certain extent, you may also be what your great-grandmother ate."

While other studies have shown that environmental exposure to pollutants can have effects on the reproductive, respiratory, and nervous system function across multiple generations, the new research shows for the first time that the immune system is impacted as well.

This multigenerational weakening of the immune system could help explain variations that are observed during seasonal and pandemic flu episodes. Annual flu vaccines provide some people more protection than others, and during pandemic flu outbreaks some people get severely ill, while others are able to fight off the infection. While age, virus mutations, and other factors can explain some of this variation, they do not fully account for the diversity of responses to flu infection found in the general population.

"When you are infected or receive a flu vaccine, the immune system ramps up production of specific kinds of white blood cells in response," said Lawrence. "The larger the response, the larger the army of white blood cells, enhancing the ability of the body to successfully fight off an infection. Having a smaller size army -- which we see across multiple generations of mice in this study -- means that you're at risk for not fighting the infection as effectively."

In the study, researchers exposed pregnant mice to environmentally relevant levels of a chemical called dioxin, which, like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), is a common by-product of industrial production and waste incineration, and is also found in some consumer products. These chemicals find their way into the food system where they are eventually consumed by humans. Dioxins and PCBs bio-accumulate as they move up the food chain and are found in greater concentrations in animal-based food products.

The 2019 EHSC Center Directors Meeting was hosted by the University of Iowa in Iowa City on June 20, 21, 2019. University of Rochester's Environmental Health Sciences Center faculty, Irfan Rahman, PhD, CEC Director Katrina Korfmacher, PhD, IHSFC Co-Director Steve Georas, MD, Center Director Paige Lawrence, PhD, and new Center member Daniel Croft, MD, MPH, as well as Center Administrator Pat Noonan Sullivan attended the meeting.

Each faculty member played a role in the meeting, contributing expertise of their work. Rahman spoke on Human health studies of E-cigarette use at the meeting. Discussants included Dana Haine, MS from UNC and Judith Zelikoff, PhD, from NYU, moderated by Alejandro Comellas, MD. Katrina Korfmacher facilitated sessions on policy engagement by CECs and report back of research results to participants and communities. At a break out session on translational research in environmental health sciences, Georas shared the centers experience with the highly successful IHSFC Translational Mini-Pilot Program. Croft presented a poster on his research showing an association between air pollution exposure and hospital admissions for respiratory viral infections.

The 2020 EHSC Center Directors Meeting will be hosted by Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan July 22nd- 24th, 2020.

At Opening Convocation on September 6, 2018, Paige Lawrence received the award for Outstanding T32 Program Director. This award is presented to the T32 principal investigator with the best impact score for a new grant or competing renewal in the past year.

Irfan Rahman was also recognized at Convocation for receiving a Dean's Professorship this past year. Dean's Professorships were established in 1982 and are designated by the Dean to be assigned to individuals of outstanding research excellence.

Congratulations to both!

Paige Lawrence, Ph.D.

Irfan Rahman, Ph.D.

The Lawrence Lab's article, "Developmental Exposure to a Mixture of 23 Chemicals Associated With Unconventional Oil and Gas Operations Alters the Immune System of Mice", has been chose as one of NIEHS "Papers of the month."

The paper deals with prenatal exposure to chemicals used in unconventional oil and gas (UOG) extraction, also known as fracking, affected immune system development in mice, according to a new study by NIEHS grantees. The study provided the first evidence that early-life exposure to a mixture of 23 commonly used UOG chemicals may hinder the ability to ward off diseases later in life.

Congratulations to the entire lab, Dr. Lawrence and co-authors, including Drs. Steve Georas, Jacques Robert and Susan Nagel (Missouri).

Amid predictions of a second fracking boom in the U.S., the first evidence that chemicals found in ground water near fracking sites can impair the immune system was published today in Toxicological Sciences. The study, performed in mice, suggests that exposure to fracking chemicals during pregnancy may diminish female offspring's ability to fend off diseases, like multiple sclerosis.

Fracking, also called hydraulic fracturing or unconventional oil and gas extraction, involves pumping millions of gallons of chemical-laden water deep underground to fracture rock and release oil and gas. About 200 chemicals have been measured in waste water and surface or ground water in fracking-dense regions and several studies have reported higher rates of diseases, like acute lymphocytic leukemia and asthma attacks, among residents in these areas.

"Our study reveals that there are links between early life exposure to fracking-associated chemicals and damage to the immune system in mice," said Paige Lawrence, Ph.D., chair of Environmental Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, who led the study. "This discovery opens up new avenues of research to identify, and someday prevent, possible adverse health effects in people living near fracking sites."

Anthony Franchini, Ph.D.

Congratulations to Anthony Franchini, Ph.D. and graduate student Jessica Meyers for both winning awards this year. Dr. Fanchini won two awards, Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI) Immunotoxicology Young Investigator Travel Award and Best Presentation by a Postdoctoral Trainee Award, for his presentation, "Identification of novel gene targets of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor in dendritic cells in the context of viral infection."

Jessica Meyers

Jessica won 1st place for Best Presentation by a Student, for her presentation "Aryl hydrocarbon receptor activation during development reduces dendritic cell function later in life." Both are currently doing research in Dr. Paige Lawrence's lab. Congrats to both!

B. Paige Lawrence, Ph.D.

After a yearlong national search, Mark Taubman, M.D., dean of SMD and CEO of URMC, has named B. Paige Lawrence, Ph.D., as the new chair of the Department of Environmental Medicine. Lawrence, who has been a faculty member in the department for 11 years and has directed the Rochester Toxicology Program for the past 6 years, will officially begin her post on August 1.

“Environmental health research has led to policy changes and clinical care advances that have significantly improved people’s health over the past 50 years,” said Taubman. “Our medical center has a strong history of translating environmental research discoveries into improved care for patients, and I’m confident that Dr. Lawrence will help the department to continue its leadership in this critically important field of medicine.”

The Department of Environmental Medicine focuses on advancing discoveries about how the environment contributes to health and disease. Basic research led by department faculty focuses on how environmental factors influence a broad spectrum of diseases and contributes to innovative approaches to prevent or ameliorate exposure-based health consequences. The department also administers several nationally regarded, interdisciplinary programs, including the Environmental Health Sciences Center, Toxicology Program, Lung Biology and Disease Program, Life Sciences Learning Center, and two clinical programs in occupational medicine.

Lawrence is currently a professor of Environmental Medicine and Microbiology and Immunology at URMC and is a widely recognized expert on how environmental factors influence the development and function of the immune system. Her lab has implicated certain chemicals in dampening infants’ responses to vaccines, and has shown that maternal exposures to certain chemicals have enduring effects on the immune system, such as a poorer ability to fight infections, and a greater likelihood of developing autoimmune and allergic diseases.

“As testimony to the national and international reputation of our department faculty, we had many exceptional applicants from well-known academic institutions, and Dr. Lawrence stood out among them all,” said Jeffrey Lyness, M.D., senior associate dean for Academic Affairs at URSMD, who led the search. “She is a highly accomplished scientist and mentor who has a unique ability to engage and inspire colleagues to develop a collective vision for their work.”

Lawrence plans to bring this collective outlook to her new role. Though she has many ideas of new opportunities for the department, she looks forward to working with the faculty to develop a shared vision for the future. This model, she believes, will allow her to truly capitalize on the strengths of the department and its nationally acclaimed faculty.

“Part of the role of chair is to help your faculty get where they want to go,” said Lawrence. “I hope to leverage existing strengths of our department and center faculty, who have phenomenal reputations nationally, and integrate the department even more strongly with the URMC strategic vision.”

In addition to becoming the chair of Environmental Medicine, Lawrence will take over as director of the Environmental Health Sciences Center (EHSC), a center of excellence sponsored by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a part of the NIH. The center, which was established in 1975, is now in its 43^rd year of continual funding, a testament to the EHSC’s scientific achievements and history of excellent leadership.

The EHSC supports researchers who are investigating how materials in the environment – such as lead, air and water pollutants, pesticides, and nanoparticles – affect human health. EHSC investigators also study the underlying mechanisms of toxic substances and how early life exposures may be transmitted across generations and contribute to diseases like Alzheimer’s or cancer.

For the past year, Debbie Cory-Slechta, Ph.D., has served as acting chair of the Department of Environmental Medicine and director of the EHSC. She stepped into that role when Thomas Gasiewicz, Ph.D., professor of Environmental Medicine and chair of the department from 2001 to 2016, stepped down to focus on his health after suffering a stroke.

Lawrence earned an undergraduate degree in biology and chemistry from Skidmore College and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Molecular, and Cell Biology at Cornell University. She received specialized training in immunology and toxicology during a post-doctoral fellowship at Oregon State University. In addition to leading a well-funded research program, she is well known for her commitment to education, mentoring, and science education. She has received three mentoring awards, and serves regularly on national committees that focus on graduate education, career development, and mentoring.