Environmental Chemicals & Hormones: Molecular & Computational Approaches

PI: John McLachlan, Tulane

Co-PI: Vimal Kishore, Xavier

New Hires: Thomas Bishop; Thomas Wiese

Abstract

Many chemicals in the environment function as the female sex hormone, estrogen. While the implications of this fact may be far reaching for the reproductive capacity of all vertebrate species, including human, there is still little known about the mechanisms that underlay the estrogenic potency of structural diverse compounds. Research in the environmental endocrinology lab at Tulane University is directed towards an understanding of the molecular details of the action of synthetic and natural environment chemicals with the estrogen response systems. To this end, we have created yeast strains containing the human estrogen receptor gene and a related signaling construct to determine estrogen or anti estrogen action at the fundamental level. Additional studies using a novel bacteria strain which responds ton estrogen related chemicals (substituted phenols) provides another level of molecular and chemical information on the attributes associated with the biological function of estrogenicity. These molecular biological studies have helped outline the structural insights gained in the laboratory into molecular models as well as the development of models of chemical ligand-receptor interaction which complement the findings is the next important step in the evolution of this scientific problem. Given the widespread distribution of potentially hormone-like chemicals in Louisiana, this research will not only help in understanding the structural basis of estrogenicity, but also help in design of rationale remediation strategies for this class of chemicals.

The Board of Regents LaSER assistant professors (BoR/LaSER professors) will join a productive, established research group under the leadership of Dr. John A. McLachlan, holder of joint Professorships in Pharmacology at both Tulane and Xavier Universities and the Director of the Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research (CBR). Dr. McLachlan is an internationally recognized researcher in the area of environmental endocrinology. The research ongoing in this group would be materially enhanced and taken to a new level of competitiveness by the addition of two junior faculty members who work on the problems of structure and function of chemical ligands and their receptors or receptor information networks at the molecular and computational level.

Tulane and Xavier Universities have a strong, functioning partnership in Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research (CBR), a joint enterprise between Xavier University, an historically black university, and Tulane University, a majority white university, which has been in place for six years. The administrative procedures and faculty interactions necessary to manage an inter-university research center are already in place. More than ten joint research projects involving Xavier and Tulane faculty are ongoing with fund allocations and management through the CBR. The JFAP proposal requires an additional level of administrative creativity and faculty cooperation addressed to issues of joint teaching, comparable salaries and teaching loads, inter-university tenure and physical locations. These issues are addressed in the proposal. Both Tulane and Xavier Universities will commit a tenure track faculty position at the assistant professor level to the Joint Faculty Appointments Program (JFAP). Additionally, the stipend for one graduate student and two undergraduate students working jointly with the JFAP faculty will come from Tulane/Xavier CBR sources. A committee composed of current members of the tenure and promotion committees of each university will be established to formulate policies for the JFAP faculty tenure plans. An advisory and oversight committee is proposed to aid in the successful outcome of this unique project.