Tiffany G. Bredfeldt, University of Arizona: recipient of the 2005 Karen Wetterhahn memorial award.The Superfund Basic Research Program The Superfund Basic Research Program (SBRP) was created within the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in 1986 under the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA). (SBRP SBRP Superfund Basic Research Program SBRP Schachbund Rheinland-Pfalz SBRP South Bend Raceway Park (North Liberty, IN) SBRP Scottish Borders Rural Partnership (UK) SBRP Special Bridge Replacement Program ) is pleased to announce that Ms. Tiffany G. Bredfeldt of the University of Arizona (body, education) University of Arizona - The University was founded in 1885 as a Land Grant institution with a three-fold mission of teaching, research and public service. is the recipient of the eighth annual Karen Wetterhahn Memorial Award. The award will presented to Ms. Bredfeldt on 13 January 2006 at the SBRP annual meeting in New York, New York. The SBRP presents this annual award to an outstanding scholar to pay tribute to the life and scientific accomplishments of Karen E. Wetterhahn, former director of the SBRP at Dartmouth College. Dr. Wetterhahn died in 1997 as the result of an accidental exposure to dimethylmercury. An acknowledged international expert on the effects of heavy metals on biologic systems, Dr. Wetterhahn was a leader in conducting research on how metals initiate cancer and other metal-induced human diseases at the molecular level. She fostered links among biology, chemistry, environmental studies, engineering, and medical science, insisting that "the life sciences are interdisciplinary." Ms. Bredfeldt is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas strives to be known as a "nationally competitive, student-centered research university serving Arkansas and the world." The school recently completed its "Campaign for the 21st Century," in which the university raised more than $1 billion for the school, used , where she earned a B.S. in microbiology and minored in Spanish. She is in the fifth year of a Ph.D. program at the University of Arizona, where, under the guidance of Dr. A. Jay Gandolfi, she is working to identify which species of arsenic have the potential to malignantly transform human cells. In research that Dr. Gandolfi characterizes as "breakthrough," Ms. Bredfeldt demonstrated that a) at environmentally relevant levels of arsenic exposure, human bladder cells can generate monomethylarsonous acid (MMAIII), an arsenic metabolite metabolite, organic compound that is a starting material in, an intermediate in, or an end product of metabolism. Starting materials are substances, usually small and of simple structure, absorbed by the organism as food. that is 20 times more toxic than inorganic arsenic, and b) MMAIII can transform human bladder cells into a new cancer cell line. This appears to be the first observation of MMAIII-induced cellular transformation of any human cell line--a truly exciting finding. Ms. Bredfeldt's observations strongly support the notion that arsemc metabolites Metabolites Substances produced by metabolism or by a metabolic process. Mentioned in: Interactions may be functioning as the ultimate toxicants in arsenic-induced pathologies due to their heightened toxicity compared with inorganic arsenic. The NIEHS NIEHS National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIH, DHHS) congratulates Ms. Bredfeldt on her research accomplishments and wishes her continued success in her scientific career. |
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