Capitalizing on UC San Diego’s unique ability to address environmental threats to public health, a new center based at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego will target emerging contaminants found naturally in common seafood dishes as well as man-made chemicals that accumulate in human breast milk.
With $6 million in joint funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, the new Scripps Center for Oceans and Human Health will track natural chemicals known as halogenated organic compounds, or HOCs. Human-manufactured varieties include polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, chemicals that until recently were manufactured and broadly used in commercial products as flame retardants in the textile and electronics sectors.
Less is known about the natural versions of HOCs that accumulate in marine mammals such as seals and dolphins and have been identified in top predators that humans consume such as tuna and swordfish. While PBDEs are well known for their toxicity and have been linked to a variety of human diseases, including cancer and thyroid ailments, the origin and transmission of their natural counterparts are poorly understood.
The Scripps Center for Oceans and Human Health will investigate the biology and chemistry behind these natural contaminants in the Southern California Bight, from Point Conception in Santa Barbara south to Ensenada, Mexico.
“The new Center for Oceans and Human Health is uniting leading experts in oceanography and medicine, two areas that make UC San Diego one of the best and most unique universities in the world, to address an emerging threat to public health and safety,” said UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “UC San Diego is proud to be leading this effort in collaboration with other prominent institutions around the San Diego region.”
“The Scripps Center for Oceans and Human Health is focused on addressing to what extent nature contributes to the production and transmission of these toxins in the marine environment,” said Bradley Moore, director of the new center and a professor of oceanography and pharmaceutical sciences at Scripps and the UC San Diego Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. “Southern California waters will be the focus of our study, in part because our state has the highest reported incidence of polybrominated chemicals in human breast milk in the world.”
Read the full story at https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/7991.