The Boston University Superfund Basic Research Program (SBRP) focuses on potential developmental and reproductive sequelae of xenobiotic exposure. The endocrine disrupter hypothesis posits that adverse wildlife and human health effects may result from exposure to a variety of chemicals (xenobiotics; in particular, xenoestrogens) which can interact with hormone receptors and disrupt normal intra- and extracellular receptor-mediated signaling processes. Ensuing endocrine, reproductive, and immune system dysfunction may potentially impact whole organism fitness with population level effects for both wildlife and humans. Of particular concern is the susceptibility of the developing organism to low level xenobiotic exposures through a variety of pathways. Within our program, two projects (1 & 2) focus on epidemiological and statistical studies of neurotoxicity of perchloroethylene, and projects 3 through 8 address this problem through mechanistic studies. Five of these have significant requirements for molecular modeling of enzyme, steroid, and cytokine receptor sites for xenobiotics. A final project addresses the issue of remediation.

In order to apply a modeling approach to this problem, an understanding of molecular actions of hormones and xenobiotics on enzymatic, transcriptional, and translational processes as they relate to development, reproduction and immune interactions is required. Thus there is a need for integration of computational course components with molecular, cellular, and environmental training focused on reproduction, development and environmental health for the pre-doctoral student cohort within the BU-SBRP. To meet this need, and recognizing the future application of bioinformatics in biology and environmental science (see Bioinformatics Research Support Core; Vajda), our program integrated core computational skills with course programs in biological and environmental science training.

The training core supports three pre-doctoral fellows drawn from the predoctoral pool at Boston University. Interested students may contact Ian Callard at: ipc@bu.edu. The core emphasizes the application of bioinformatics to problems of xenobiotic exposure, endocrine disruption of reproductive and developmental processes, as well as epidemiological aspects. Although students may work with the primary investigator of their choice (See list at the left), from the outset they are encouraged to include a course in Bioinformatics, a course in Reproduction and Development, and a basic course in epidemiological approaches in their program in order to take an interdisciplinary approach in their doctoral research. Application to the graduate programs of Boston University is through the normal channels.