Professor receives $841,000 grant for disorders research
Pharmacology and toxicology professor Andrea Gore is working on research that may ensure that your future children have healthy figures and living environments.
Her experiments with the external effects of the environment on the endocrine system have earned her a $841,000 grant from the Office of Science Education of the National Institutes of Health, which she will use to study how the body reacts to pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organic chloride compounds.
The study, “Transgenerational Epigenetic Effects of PCBs on Neuroendocrine Systems,” will search for the mechanisms that create disfigurements and disorders when a living organism is exposed to chemicals.
Gore used rats in a previous study to investigate the effect that early exposure to endocrine-disturbing chemicals can have on developing organisms. Results showed that such exposure can lead to impaired fertility and diseases like obesity and thyroid disorders.
Gore stated that she was concerned about the long-term consequences such chemicals, which the average individual is exposed to everyday, will have for future generations.
Gore studies reproductive development and aging mechanisms in her laboratory, focusing on the neural mechanisms of puberty, the effects of environmental and hormonal factors on reproductive functions and neural mechanisms for reproductive aging.
Gore was awarded the grant after completing an extensive online application process under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which supports federal spending on health care.
