Sharon Walker awarded a Fulbright Fellowship

Sharon Walker, a ETOX faculty member and assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, was been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to spend the next academic year at Ben Gurion University in Israel studying and monitoring pathogens in aquifers used for drinking water. A news release on her award can be found here. Our congratulations to Sharon for this nice recognition.

UCR ETOX Alumni at SOT

The annual SOT meeting was held this past week in Baltimore and it was nice to see a number of out alumni. Drew Olaharski, currently at Roche Pharmaceuticals, gave a nice platform presentation on the use of a high throughput in vitro screening assay to predict bone marrow toxicity. Jimmy Keenan was a author/co-author on two exposure and risk assessment posters and Xiaoqin Ye was on several posters with her students. Below are a few photos of our alumni that I remembered to take. I also saw Bob Krieger from a distance but didn't get a chance to take his picture.

Heidi Bethel and Catherine Gibbons, currently at the EPA in the Washington DC area.

James Keenan, currently at ChemRisk in the San Francisco bay area.

Sharada Balakrishnan, currently consulting in Southern California.

Xiaoqin Ye, currently an assistant professor at the University of Georgia

Chris Frantz, currently at MedImmune in the San Francisco bay area.

Chris Banks and Mike Adams on History Channel

The research of ETOX student Chris Banks and ETOX faculty member Mike Adams on a parasitoid wasp venom was featured on the show "Evolve: Venom" which as recently shown on the History Channel. In the segment, Chris shows how the Emerald Jewel wasp injects its toxin into the nervous system of a cockroach turning it into a zombie that can serve as a food source for the wasp's developing young. A YouTube clip of the segment can be seen here. Chris and Mike's segment begins at about 23 minutes. Our congratulations to Chris and Mike for this nice recognition of their research.

Green Materials Class

Along with colleagues at UC Davis and UC Irvine, a number of ETOX faculty members and students are involved in a UC Toxic Substances Research and Teaching Program lead campus focus in Green Materials. This quarter Professor Julie Schoenung at UC Davis taught a class (ECM 281) entitled Green Engineering: Theory and Practice that was streamed by real-time video to UCI and UC Riverside. Attached are a few photos from the class as seen from UCR.

The main class at UC Davis as seen on the UCR plasma screen.

ETOX students Si Bui and Guoping Wang watching a powerpoint presentation streamed from UC Davis.ETOX students Si Bui and Guoping Wang.

Spring in Riverside

Spring has come to Riverside. The hills are green and the wildflowers are in bloom. Attached are several photos that I took last Saturday while riding in Sycamore Canyon Park near campus. [They were taken with a cell phone camera so the resolution is not as great as I would have liked.]

UCR ETOX get together at SOT

If you will be attending the Society of Toxicology annual meeting in Baltimore this year and would like to get together with fellow UCR students and alumni for dinner (or lunch), please send me an email (david.eastmond@ucr.edu). I will be in Baltimore from Sunday night to Wednesday evening. I look forward to seeing each of you.

Eastmond appointed to NTP board (and visit with Ling Wang)

David Eastmond, an ETOX faculty member , was recently appointed to the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Toxicology Program (NTP). He will also be serving on the Technical Reports Review Subcommittee which provides an independent peer review of the NTP bioassay reports and other documents. He was appointed by Michael Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and his appointment will continue until June 2012.

One of the benefits of serving on the NTP board is that I get to see Ling Wang, one of my former students and an ETOX alumni, who lives with her family near Research Triangle Park. Below is a picture of Ling and I taken in her house during my recent visit.