• The Research Translation Core conducted a meeting in Portland with EPA, DEQ, and Oregon Health Authority stakeholders on Dec. 13, 2011 with Dr. Kim Anderson as a highlighted speaker. 
• The Community Engagement Core has created a newsletter highlighting their CTUIR-OSU Partnership research and activiites in 2011. View Newsletter (pdf)
• Naomi Hirsch, RTC Coordinator presented at APHA in D.C. on November 1, 2011 with other NIEHS Centers in a session titled: Can you hear me now? Contemporary models and strategies in environmental health communication. See Naomi's notes on Web-based projects that encourage bi-directional communication and how to have greater impact via the Internet.
• Dr. Bryan Tilt, Associate Professor of Anthropology and CO-PI, RTC, received the Robert J. Frank Research, Scholarship and Creativity Award from the College of Liberal Arts. Tilt was nominated for the success of his first book, “The Struggle in Rural China: Environmental Values and Civil Society,” and for more than 15 peer-reviewed journal articles. Tilt also has funding from the National Science Foundation for his work on a dam-impact assessment model. In 2012. With support from a Fulbright Scholarship, Tilt will conduct interviews in Yunnan Province to investigate how people balance hydropower and dams with values such as biodiversity, community preservation and sustainability.

• Dr. Barbara Harper, Co-Leader of the SRP Community Engagement Core, will serve on the EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB). Dr. Harper is a toxicologist and risk assessor in the Department of Science and Engineering at the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

• Dr. Staci Simonch has been appointed as a member of the Environmental Science and Technology (ES&T) Editorial Advisory Board for a 3-yr term beginning January 1, 2012.
• Congratulations to the Baird lab (SRP Project 1) for winning best poster award at the 2011 Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing (CGRB) Fall Conference. The title of the poster is "Developing a Fuzzy Neural Network Model for Predicting the Interactive Effects of Complex PAH Mixtures on the CYP1B1 Transcriptional Regulatory Network". A .pdf image of the poster will be uploaded onto the CGRB website soon.  
• On August 26, 2011, RTC leaders Dr. Daniel Sudakin and Dr. Dave Stone attended a boat tour of the Portland Harbor. The tour was organized by the Port of Portland and Northwest Natural gas. Attendees included representatives  from the office of State Senator Merkely, Oregon State Representative Cliff Bentz, officials from the Oregon Department of State Lands, and representatives from Port of Portland and Northwest Natural. The boat tour included an informative summary of the history of the Portland Harbor Superfund Site. View pictures
  
• Oregon Health Authority has just released their final version of the Public Health Assessment addressing recreational use of the Portland Harbor Superfund Site. SRP Research Translation Core (RTC) provided input that contributed to the report.
• Dr. Staci Simonich and some of her graduate students (Project 6) attended the 23rd International Symposium on Polycyclic Aromatic Compounds in Germany. Congrats to Narumol Jariyasopit for receiving the "best student poster" award.
• Steven O’Connell (Project 4) presented on Aug. 16th in a NIEHS SRP Trainee Webinar series on his research: Utilizing Silicone Passive Samplers to Expand Environmental Monitoring for the Portland Harbor Superfund, OR. Over 100 people attended the webinar.
• A manuscript from the Analytical Chemistry Core entitled, "Determination of parent and substituted polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in high-fat salmon using a modified QuEChERS extraction, dispersive SPE and GC-MS" has been accepted in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Authors include Forsberg, Norman; Wilson, Glenn; Anderson, Kim
• A graduate student seminar took place in Winter 2011 on Preparing Effective Outreach Modules for Middle School Students. Using the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a context for the outreach activity, the graduate students created three hands-on activities to teach the concepts of mass, chemical separation, analytical chemistry, and data analysis. The link provides more Information and the final activities for teachers.
  
• A new article from Project 1 entitled, "Activation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor is the major toxic mode of action of an organic extract of a reference urban dust particulate matter mixture: The role of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons" was accepted with revision into Journal of Mutation Research.
• A new article from Project 4 entitled, “Estimating risk at a Superfund site using passive sampling devices as biological surrogates in human health risk models” was accepted into Chemosphere. Authors include Allan, Sower and Anderson.
• Andrew J. Larkin, an undergraduate working with Project 1, received a Culture of Writing Award through OSU's Writing Intensive Curriculum Program for his thesis, “Method Development for Extraction and Purification of Dermal RNA from FVB/N Mice Treated with Environmental PAH Mixtures”.
• A new article from the Communication Engagement Core entitled, "Subsistence exposure scenarios for tribal applications" was accepted in Human and Ecological Risk Assessment:  An International Journal. Authors include: Harper, B.L., Harding, A.K., Harris, S., & Berger, P.
• Dr. Kim Anderson was invited to join NIEHS Director Linda Birnbaum and present at the Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research Luncheon Briefing in D.C. on May 26th in relation to assessing the health impact of the Gulf Oil Spill. Download the slides from the presentation.
• Dr. Kim Anderson presented twice at the NARPM 21st Annual Training Meeting from May 16-20th. Download the slides in pdf below.
  + A Case Study in Tribal-University Collaboration: Air Sampling on the Swinomish Reservation
  + Innovative Technologies to Quantify Environmental Contaminant Bioavailability & Exposure
• Dr. Anna Harding and Dr. Barbara Harper presented a NIEHS Risk-eLearning webinar entitled "Addressing Tribal Exposures to Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) and Building Tribal Capacity though a Tribal-University Partnership" (5-23-11). Approximately 200 stakeholders and colleagues nationwide attended the webinar.
• A brochure for Gulf of Mexico communities has been developed to inform them about our air and water sampling research. Download brochure.
• On Earth Day, April 22, Dr .Dave Stone was invited by Congressman Earl Blumenauer to discuss human health concerns at the Portland Harbor Superfund Site. Attendees included the Congressman, Portland Mayor Sam Adams, EPA Region 10 Administrator Dennis McLerran, DEQ Administrator Dick Pederson, tribal representatives and leaders from several Northwest businesses. In addition to discussing environmental health risk perspectives, Dr. Stone highlighted SRP and explained how EMT faculty and the other members of the SRP support and promote informed, science-based decisions for Oregonians.
• The OSU Research Office has awarded funding to undergraduate Annika Swanson [Major: Biochemistry and Biophysics] to work under Robert Tanguay, “Investigating the Toxicity of Oxygenated Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (OPAHs) in Developing Zebrafish” She presented in September: PowerPoint / Video
• Training videos on preparing the passive sampling devices (PSDs) for deployment have just been added to the SRP site. PSDs are used in Project 4 and have received much attention since the sampling in the Gulf of Mexico after the oil spill.
• Congratulations to Dr. Robert Tanguay for being honored with an OSU Distinguished Professor award. Read the announcement
• The video from the TV program Green Science Oregon of Dr. Kim Anderson discussing her research using bioanalytical tools to analyze PAHs in the environment is now available. See the Video.
• Tamara Tal, an NIEHS postdoctoral fellow working with Robert Tanguay at the Sinnhuber Aquatic Research Lab has been chosen to be a 2011 Science Communication fellow with Environmental Health News.
• The Community Engagement Core has created Personal Air Sampler Training Videos available on the web site.
• Dr. Kim Anderson was awarded a new NIEHS-funded grant. Her application “R21 BRIDGES for Evaluation of Health Outcomes, Repercussions and Impacts in Zones of Oil-spills in Nature” was funded $400,000 for the next two years (2011 - 2012). This project will employ passive sampling devices (PSDs) in the Gulf of Mexico to measure contaminants from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in an effort to connect environmental exposures with biological response. A zebrafish model will be used to test the toxicological effects.
• On January 7, 2011, SRP Investigators participated in the EMT Research Daysponsored by the Department of Environmental Toxicology and the Environmental Health Sciences Center.

In the News

• Cancer from fetal exposure to carcinogens depends on dosage, timing (Williams)

• Rice Paddy People - In a rural Chinese village, farmers fight industrial pollution (Tilt)
• Cancer Prevention Begins During Pregnancy (Williams)
• Superfund webinar showcases trainees

• Down in the Gulf - Article in Terra Magazine about the OSU research related to the oil spill (Anderson)
• Stringent pollution control in Beijing could save lives (Simonich and Stone)

• Keeping pollution restrictions in Beijing could save lives, a study finds (Simonich)
• Pollution controls used during China Olympics could save lives if continued (Simonich)
• China's Olympic pollution cuts could reduce cancers (Simonich)
• After the Spill: Sarah Allan is Tracking Toxins in the Gulf (Anderson)
• Zebrafish: Tiny see-through fish offer a model for understanding human health (Tanguay)

In May 2011 in collaboration with the Confederate Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, The Community Engagement Core (CEC) in collaboration with Project 6 and the Analytical Chemistry Core facilitated air sampling during traditional smoking of salmon. CEC aims to identify opportunities to better access PAH exposure pathways specific and relevant to their traditional and cultural practices.

Graduate students assisted with building the traditional smokehouse.