UT professor receives grant for male infertility research
Pharmacy professor John Richburg has been awarded a grant to continue his work investigating the relationship between certain environmental pollutants and male infertility.
The National Institutes of Health awarded Richburg received a five-year $1.5 million grant to study the effects of chemicals on male fertility.
Richburg said his interest in male fertility stems from his interests in cell-signaling and the reproductive system that he developed during his postdoctoral training at Brown University. Cell-signaling “is when cells respond to their environments by remaining passive or changing functions,” he said.
“I’m a toxicologist [who] really looks at the cellular level and how chemicals actually cause toxicity [and] can affect male fertility,” Richburg said. “What’s specifically of interest these days is not what happens when you are an adult male, but chemicals you are exposed to throughout later growth periods. “
Richburg previously conducted a research in partnership with the Lance Armstrong Foundation to find ways to prevent the loss of fertility that often accompanies chemotherapy in males.
“I was on all the morning shows describing that. Men as young as 15 as old as 30 years old get testicular cancer. Often, [with treatment,] we upset the health or physiological functions of them that way. Many of these men undergo treatment that destroys their fertility before they even have a chance to start a family,” Richburg said.
— Vidushi Shrimali
2010 journalism maymester in China lacks applications
The study abroad office announced last week that 2010 journalism Maymester program in China has been canceled.
At least 15 students are needed for the program, but this year only nine applied.
“The point [of the program] is to try to get people out in the real world covering real stories and help them confront the challenge of covering a big, important beat like China,” said journalism school Director Tracy Dahlby, the program’s instructor.
The program in China offered credit for J349T or J395 and was titled “Reporting China: A Foreign Correspondent’s Workshop.”
Maymester program applications were due Nov. 1, and students are notified before Thanksgiving about their acceptance to and the status of the program.
Since its inception in 2008, the program has had more applicants than spaces available. Dahlby said about 40 people applied for the program in 2008 but that fewer than 40 applied for the 2009 Maymester.
Dahlby said he hopes the program will attract enough applicants for 2011.
“I’d like to rest a year and replenish the pool,” he said. “It’s a good program.”
— Viviana Aldous
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