Life Sciences Commons^™

The Evergreen Challenges Of Healing: An Evaluation Of Urban Green Space In Harambee, Kacee Ochalek

Theses and Dissertations

Urban green space initiatives have emerged in low- and middle-income cities as a solution to disinvestment, the production of more positive public health metrics, and a tool of community engagement. While the production of urban greening provides ample room for applause, The City of Milwaukee’s Healing Spaces Initiative model regarding the ongoing construction of green space and the implementation of maintenance creates challenges that perpetuate racist capitalistic notions of the neoliberal project. This paper presents reports from participant observation, document analysis, and 17 qualitative interviews with representatives of the City of Milwaukee, community partners, garden leaders, and residents. The data …

Towards Environmental Sustainability Of Nanotechnology Through Improved Evaluations Of Impact And Risk To Aquatic Species: Cross-Species Comparisons From The Laboratory And Environmentally Realistic Exposure Scenarios In The Field, Becky J. Curtis

Theses and Dissertations

Engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) are utilized in a wide variety of applications and products, including everything from toothpaste and personal care products to industries such as aerospace, defense, medicine, electronics, and agriculture. Depending on the application, release of ENMs to the environment may occur through both unintentional and deliberate routes. High surface-area-to-volume ratios make ENMs more volatile than bulk counterparts, and their small size allows translocation within biological systems that would not be possible with larger materials. These and other characteristics make ENM-biological system interactions unpredictable, creating uncertainty about their potential risks to environmental health. The purpose of this research is …

Molecular And Behavioral Impacts Of Treated Wastewater Effluent On Fish, Peter Schumann

Theses and Dissertations

Currently, most studies that focus on the sublethal impacts of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) such as pharmaceuticals utilize a single-compound approach, whereas these compounds always occur as complex mixtures in the environment. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are a major contributor to the formation of these mixtures as current treatment technologies inadequately remove many chemical pollutants. There is a paucity of knowledge on the neurological impacts due to exposure to complex CEC mixtures resulting from the discharge of treated WWTP effluent into aquatic environments. This knowledge gap leaves incomplete assessments of the hazards and risks from exposure to treated effluent …

Investigating Mechanisms Of Nanotoxicity Of A Next-Generation Lithium Cobalt Oxide Nanomaterial, Nicholas Joseph Niemuth

Theses and Dissertations

Commercial use of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs; materials in the range of 1-100 nm) has grown dramatically since the discovery of the means to observe, characterize, and controllably synthesize these materials at the end of the 20th century. Today, ENMs represent a global market valued in the trillions of dollars, incorporated into products because of the unique properties they confer, including increased strength, catalytic activity, and interactions with light. In this time, ENMs have also grown from relatively simple first-generation materials, such as Au, Ag, and carbon ENMs, to complex next-generation materials incorporating numerous elements into materials with complex secondary structures, …

Health Goals For Perfluorinated Alkyl Substances (Pfas): A Review Of Branched Isomers, The Role Of Industrial Sources, And The Implications Of Pfas In Biosolids On End-Of-Life Disposal Methods, Katarina Schulz

Theses and Dissertations

Per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, or PFAS, have been used for over half a century, but have become an emerging contaminant of significant concern due to their newly found widespread occurrence and recalcitrance in the environment, their tendency to bioaccumulate, and the health effects now associated with a very low level of exposure. Many gaps in knowledge remain about the fate of these chemicals in the environment and the extent of their impacts on biota. This thesis aims to fill some of the recognized gaps in knowledge: differences between linear and branched isomers of PFAS, predicting the presence of PFAS …

An Investigation Into The Trophic Magnification Of Polychlorinated Biphenyls In The Lake Michigan Food Web, Philip Hurst

Theses and Dissertations

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a group of persistent organic pollutants known to contribute to several adverse health conditions in humans including cancers and a suite of liver diseases. While there exist 209 unique PCB congeners, the World Health Organization has identified 12 that pose the greatest health risk to humans due to these congeners’ functional similarity to dioxins, another notoriously toxic class of contaminants. Along with methylmercury, PCBs are the primary drivers behind fish consumption advisories in the Great Lakes. These guidelines are informed primarily by surveys of contaminants in freshwater biota. However, the proliferation of invasive species, such as …

Toxicological Effects Of Antimicrobials (Triclosan And Triclocarban) And Cyanopeptides (Anabaenopeptins And Cyanopeptolins) In The Nematode C. Elegans, Kade A. Lenz

Theses and Dissertations

Environmental contaminants are increasingly detected in surface water, soil, and sediment. There is a concern that environmental contaminants, such as cyanpeptides and antimicrobials pose potential harm to environmental and public health. It is important that scientists evaluate the potential impacts that cyanopeptides and antimicrobials may have on the environment and public health in order to guide stakeholders in determining appropriate policies and regulations. Here we investigated the toxicological effects of two types of commonly detected environmental contaminants, antimicrobials (triclosan and triclocarban) and cyanopeptides (anabaenopeptins and cyanopeptolins), using the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans). Chapter 1 introduces the model organism …

Quantifying The Variability In Heavy Metal Concentrations In Produce Grown In Metals-Rich Soil, Harris Lowell Byers

Theses and Dissertations

Childhood Pb exposure is associated with a multitude of poor health outcomes. In food-insecure areas, growing fresh produce in residential backyard gardens is one option for parents; however, commonly grown crops are known to accumulate Pb in consumable tissues when grown in metals-rich soils. A variety of produce representing a continuum of consumable tissues were grown in soils collected from two residential vegetable gardens, a former metal foundry, and commercial topsoil purchased from a local hardware store. The concentrations of heavy metals in crop tissues were measured with custom wavelength dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (WD-XRF) spectroscopy and portable energy dispersive X-ray …

Cyanobacterial Harmful Algal Bloom Ecology And Cyanotoxins In The Eutrophic Lake Winnebago-Green Bay Water System, Sarah L. Bartlett

Theses and Dissertations

Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs) are frequently observed in water bodies used for recreation and drinking water production and can be detrimental to humans, animals, and general water quality. CyanoHABs are natural occurrences, but human activities such as agriculture, land use change, and runoff from urban and rural landscapes can promote and accelerate their expansion. The blooms are aesthetically unpleasing scums and can be laden with toxins (cyanotoxins) and toxic or otherwise bioactive peptides (TBPs) that can be harmful to humans and animals. Despite the vast research on cyanoHABs, cyanotoxin and TBP diversity and dynamics within a water column are …

Functional Characterization Of Lt-Hsc Metabolic Activity Dependent On Ahr Activity, Everett Tate

Theses and Dissertations

The cells of the immune system are descended from multipotent hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that emerge during development. Multipotency means that a single progenitor HSC can differentiate into any cell of the immune system. HSCs are required to do this for the lifetime of the organism through a process called self-renewal, and as such, any perturbation during development or in the bone marrow can have a trickle-down effect, affecting the self-renewal capacity or ability to terminally differentiate. The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) is a known regulator of HSCs. The AHR is a transcription factor required for the detoxification of numerous …

Inducible Dna Cross-Linking Agents: Design, Synthesis, Mechanism, And Anticancer Activity, Heli Fan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on investigating the reactivity of DNA towards a wide variety of aromatic compounds as novel DNA cross-linking agents and exploring their biomedical applications.

In the first part, we synthesized three series of bifunctional aromatic compounds with various core structures, aromatic substituents, and benzylic leaving groups and investigated their reactivity towards DNA. Most of these compounds efficiently form DNA interstrand cross-links (ICLs) via carbocations generated upon irradiation at 350 nm. The efficiency of DNA ICL formation and the pathway of carbocation formation strongly depend on core structures, aromatic substituents and leaving groups. Mono benzene analogues bearing an electron …

The Unintended Benefits Of Dams Should Be Considered Prior To Removal, Jacob Lloyd Jozefowski

Theses and Dissertations

Dams provide multiple benefits; however, they also degrade rivers. Many dams no longer serve their intended purpose and are nearing the end of their operational lives. The aging of dams coupled with the cost of restoration and maintenance, regulation, and the ecologic impacts of dams has resulted in removal becoming a viable management alternative. Despite increased utilization, limited research and a lack of quantitative predictive capacity results in large amounts of uncertainty associated with impacts of dam removal. Additionally, dams which no longer serve their intended purpose may still have unintended positive benefits such as the prevention of the spread …

Association Of Childhood Blood Lead Levels With Firearm Violence Perpetration And Victimization, Lindsay Rae Emer

Theses and Dissertations

Over 10,000 Americans are killed in firearm homicides each year, and an additional 40,000 are injured in nonfatal shootings. There is a significant public health need to identify risk factors that can be modified to prevent firearm violence. Environmental lead exposure is a demonstrated neurotoxicant which causes behavior changes that are known to be criminogenic. More recent research has demonstrated that homicides and nonfatal shootings differ by the circumstances that lead to the shootings (i.e. gang, domestic violence, arguments) and aggregating them could lead to biased results. Although studies have found a relationship between childhood lead exposure and criminal behaviors, …

Cyanobacteria And Cyanotoxin Ecology In Lakes And Drinking Water, Chelsea Weirich

Theses and Dissertations

Freshwater harmful algal blooms (FHABs) present a threat to ecological and public health in inland lakes. Problems associated with FHABs include human and animal illness, production of taste and odor compounds, and declining water quality and property values. Despite increased awareness and research on FHABs in recent decades, questions remain regarding long-term growth and diversity of FHABs in lakes that have taken measures toward slowing or reversing eutrophication, environmental factors impacting toxin occurrence, the most appropriate toxin analysis methods for protecting public health, and evidence for cyanotoxins detected in finished drinking water as a connection to exposure for potentially causing …

Development Of Cellular High Throughput Assays To Determine The Electrophysiological Profile Of Gaba(A) Receptor Modulators For Neurology And Immunology, Nina Yina Yuan

Theses and Dissertations

Gamma (γ) -aminobutyric acid (GABA) is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter found in

the mammalian central nervous system. Its effect stems from its ability to cause the opening of ion channels which causes an influx of negatively charged chloride ions or an efflux of positively charged potassium ions. This hyperpolarization of the neuron lowers the threshold for neuronal firing. This has an overall inhibitory effect on neurotransmission, decreasing the excitability of the neuron and diminishing the likelihood of a successful action potential occurring. There are two classes of GABA receptor: ligand-gated GABAA receptor (GABAAR) and metabotropic GABAB receptor (GABABR). The GABAAR …

Iodine-131: Measurement And Application Of A Novel Tracer In Lake Michigan, Michael Patrick Montenero

Theses and Dissertations

Iodine-131 is a short-lived (half-life=8.0233 days), gamma emitting, radiopharmaceutical that, when excreted by patients, enters aquatic systems via sewage effluent discharged from water reclamation facilities (WRFs). Here, I report on 131I activities in the nearshore of southwest Lake Michigan in the vicinity of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This is the first report on 131I activity in any of the Great Lakes of North America.

The flux of 131I from Milwaukee’s two WRFs was monitored from July 2013 to December 2014. Mean discharge of 131I from the Jones Island WRF was (0.664 ± 0.012)×108 Bq d-1 (mean effluent 131I activity: ~0.25 Bq L-1; …

The Identification And Quantification Of Sewage Contamination In The Milwaukee Estuary, Hayley Templar

Theses and Dissertations

Sewage contamination from failing infrastructure and sewer overflows is a major environmental and human health concern in waterways, especially in urban communities bordering the Great Lakes such as Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Culture-based fecal indicator bacteria, such as Escherichia coli, enterococci, and fecal coliforms are traditionally used to indicate the presence of a human health risk due to fecal contamination. These indicators, however, fail to distinguish between sources of fecal contamination (human vs. non-human). Two human-specific fecal indicators, human Bacteroides and human Lachnospiraceae, were used to identify and quantify sewage contamination in the Milwaukee estuary, which discharges to Lake Michigan, as well …

Effects Of Global Dna Methylation Changes On Neurobehavior In Zebrafish, Matthew Christopher Pickens

Theses and Dissertations

A number of environmental neurotoxicants modulate DNA methylation, but its influence on neurobehavior remains unclear. The laboratory has established that low-level developmental methylmercury exposure induces neurobehavioral deficits; the current results demonstrate that it also induces global DNA hypomethylation. DNA methyltransferase 1-mutant zebrafish (exhibit ~70% reduction in enzymatic activity) were used to assess the role of DNA hypomethylation on behavior. Several neurobehavioral assays including the C-start escape, circadian rhythm, basic locomotion and visual-motor response (VMR) were also performed. There was a significant difference in VMR between the wild type and mutant animals. Other behavior assays revealed no significant difference, primarily due …

Female Reproductive Impacts Of Dietary Methylmercury In Yellow Perch (Perca Flavescens) And Zebrafish (Danio Rerio), Abigail Rachael Debofsky

Theses and Dissertations

This study sought to evaluate the effects of dietary MeHg exposure on female teleost reproduction and phenotypically-anchor gene dysregulation in adult yellow perch (Perca flavescens) and zebrafish (Danio rerio) in order to establish relevant biomarkers relating exposure and subsequent reproductive effects. Yellow perch were used in the study for their socioeconomic importance within the Great Lakes basin, and their significance to the food web. Utilization of zebrafish allowed for a detailed analysis of the molecular effects of MeHg and established its relevance as a model for other fish species. MeHg exposures at environmentally relevant levels were done in zebrafish for …

Impact Of Gestational Exposure To 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-P-Dioxin On T Lymphocyte Development, Lori S. Ahrenhoerster

Theses and Dissertations

2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) is a ubiquitous environmental contaminant and the best characterized agonist of the arylhydrocarbon receptor (AHR), a transcription factor crucial to the detoxification of numerous xenobiotics. Studies in animals show that TCDD is immunosuppressive in adult exposures, and epidemiological studies have found an association between TCDD exposure and hematologic cancers. Additionally, developmental exposure to TCDD has been shown to increase the likelihood of autoimmunity and to impair immune response to later-life infections. The cells of the immune system are all descended from multipotent hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that originate in the fetus. This multipotency, defined as the ability to …

Carbon Nanomaterials In Freshwater Ecosystems: An Chronic, Multi-Generational, And Genomic Assessment Of Toxicity To Daphnia Magna, Devrah Anne Arndt

Theses and Dissertations

Carbon nanomaterials are synthesized with a variety of core structures and surface chemistries to make them more biocompatible for application in different industries, but variation in core structure and functionalization can change the toxicity of carbon nanomaterials to organisms. In addition, current literature is dominated by data from acute toxicity assays, but meta-data is necessary to improve our understanding of nanomaterial toxicity. This project identifies specific core structures and surface chemistries that make carbon nanomaterials more and less toxic using chronic toxicity assays and multi-generational assays to generate a dataset on the sub-lethal impacts of nanomaterials to Daphnia magna. In …

The Influence Of Maternal Contexts On Infant Outcomes, Secondary Analysis Of Wpcr Data 2000-2010, Mary Roseanne Butler

Theses and Dissertations

Congenital heart defects (CHD) are the most prevalent birth defect in the world and occur in approximately 6-8 of every 1,000 live births (Hoffman & Kaplan, 2002). CHD continues to be one of the leading causes of infant morbidity and mortality today. Five to ten percent of all cases of CHD can be attributed to a chromosomal abnormality, 3%-5% are linked to single gene defects, and approximately 2% are a result of known environmental factors (Clark, 2001). With only 10%-15% of the causes of CHD are understood, the remaining 85%-90% of all CHD cases, the etiologies remain unknown. The purpose …

Effects Of Traffic And Air Pollution On Risk Of Preterm Birth And Low Birth Weight Outcomes In Milwaukee County, 2005-2010, Deborah Lynn Pasha James

Theses and Dissertations

Between 2005 and 2010, infants born to non-Hispanic black mothers experienced a 3-fold elevated risk of infant mortality compared to those born to white and Hispanic mothers. Preterm birth (PTB) and low birth weight (LBW) are strong predictors of infant mortality. To our knowledge, this is the first study of Wisconsin births to evaluate the effect of social and environmental factors on risk of PTB and LBW. We hypothesize that the observed racial inequalities in PTB and LBW are related to traffic density and air pollution. The Milwaukee INFANTS Study used 2005-2010 electronic birth record data (N = 85,045) geocoded …

Gene Expression Response In Early Developmental Stages Of Rainbow Trout Exposed To Ecologically Relevant Concentrations Of Malathion, Susan Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding the early life stage toxic effects of environmental organophosphate exposure on organism health is crucial to identifying biomarkers that can be used for preventative care. Malathion, a potent organophosphate, is one of the most widely used organophosphates in agriculture and pest eradication. Due to its widespread use, pesticide runoff into area bodies of water poses a great threat to aquatic life and human inhabitants. Acute exposure to high concentrations of malathion causes neurological abnormalities and can result in respiratory failure, muscle spasms, and mental confusion in humans.

In the present study, the effects of malathion are observed following acute, …

Part I, Unified Pharmacophore Protein Models Of The Benzodiazepine Receptor Subtypes ; Part Ii, Subtype, Terrill S. Clayton

Theses and Dissertations

Part I. New models of unified pharmacophore/receptors have been constructed guided by the synthesis of subtype selective compounds in light of recent developments both in ligand synthesis and structural studies of the binding site itself. The evaluation of experimental data in combination with comparative models of the α1β2γ2, α2β2γ2, α3β2γ2 and α5β2γ2 GABA(A) receptors has led to an orientation of the pharmacophore model within the benzodiazepine binding site (Bz BS). These results not only are important for the rational design of new selective ligands, but also for the identification and evaluation of possible roles which specific residues may have within …