Dear HOT Members, On behalf of the HOT Executive Committee it is my pleasure to invite you to join us during the 58th SOT Annual Meeting in Baltimore. HOT’s program for this year includes the traditional HOT Business and Reception (Tuesday, March 12 at the Baltimore Marriott Inner Harbor, 6-9 pm) where you can congratulate our 2019 Award Winners, recognize HOT`s generous Sponsors and meet old and new friends. Also, you cannot miss the HOT Mentoring Activity (Tuesday, March 12 at the Sheraton Inner Harbor, 12:30-13:30 pm) organized by our Grad Rep Yanelli Nunez and Councilor Teresa Palacios. Take time to visit the HOT member presentations throughout the week, and the HOT Poster that includes our annual achievements. Come join HOT leadership at the SOT Pavilion during the ToxExpo hours. We look forward to seeing you in Baltimore. The Hispanic Organization of Toxicologists (HOT) is a Special Interest Group of the Society of Toxicology Toxenlaces Message from the President Silvia Berlanga de Moraes Barros, PharmD, MSc, PhD HOT President Building Bridges Through Toxicology 1 HOT Officers Contact Silvia Berlanga de Moraes Barros, PhD President [email protected]Ranulfo Lemus Olalde, ScD, DABT Vice President [email protected]Enrique Fuentes-Mattei, PhD Vice President-Elect [email protected]Julieta Martino, PhD Secretary [email protected]Nilsa Rivera-Del Valle, PhD Treasurer [email protected]Mariana Cardenas-González, PhD Councilor [email protected]Aline de Conti, PhD Councilor [email protected]Dania Bacardi Fernández, PhD Councilor [email protected]Teresa Palacios Hernández, PhD Councilor [email protected]Vinicius de Paula Venancio, PhD Postdoctoral Representative [email protected]Yanelli Nuñez Graduate Student Representative [email protected]Robert P. Casillas, PhD, ATS Past President [email protected]José F. Delgado, BS Toxenlaces Editor-in-chief [email protected]Alejandro Ramírez-Lee, PhD Toxenlaces Assistant Editor and Graphic Designer [email protected]ISSUE December 2018- January 2019 56 P.1 Message from the President P.2 2019 HOT Travel Award Winners P.3 News from our members P.4 Announcements P.5 HOT Professional Tip Article P.6 Trainee Section P.8 Announcements P.9 HOT sponsors and sister organizations P.10 Announcements P.11
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Toxenlaces - Society of Toxicology · 2019-03-04 · the aerobiology of airborne fungi in the atmosphere of San Juan, PR [1]. We used to joke that airborne spores from fungi, which
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Dear HOT Members,
On behalf of the HOT
Executive Committee it is
my pleasure to invite you to
join us during the 58th SOT
Annual Meeting in
Baltimore. HOT’s program
for this year includes the
traditional HOT Business
and Reception (Tuesday,
March 12 at the Baltimore
Marriott Inner Harbor, 6-9
pm) where you can
congratulate our 2019
Award Winners, recognize
HOT`s generous Sponsors
and meet old and new
friends. Also, you cannot
miss the HOT Mentoring
Activity (Tuesday, March 12
at the Sheraton Inner
Harbor, 12:30-13:30 pm)
organized by our Grad Rep
Yanelli Nunez and
Councilor Teresa Palacios.
Take time to visit the HOT
member presentations
throughout the week, and
the HOT Poster that
includes our annual
achievements. Come join
HOT leadership at the SOT
Pavilion during the
ToxExpo hours.
We look forward to seeing
you in Baltimore.
The Hispanic Organization of Toxicologists (HOT) is a Special Interest Group
When I was growing up in a small town of thesoutheast of Puerto Rico (Arroyo...about 20 mileswest from where Hurricane Maria made landfall) itdid not pass through my mind that we cancontribute to society beyond the sports arena. Myfocus was towards contributing to society wasthrough sports (baseball specifically). A familytragedy spun my world around in such a way that myfocus was completely inverse—contribute to societyby understanding our human bodies when itinteracts with the outside (i.e. the environment).Although the competitive and discipline spirits ofsports did not leave my soul, there was a differentmindset towards society. At the end of myundergraduate career, at the time that my “clock ranout” (a jargon to refer that 4-year sports eligibility incollege athletics was completed), it was themicrobiology field which got my attention...after myfirst very streak plate technique attempt in amicrobiology lab. It was a “perfect streak” accordingto my lab instructor—I take her word on that!Nevertheless, I was not sure on which type ofmicrobe (i.e. bacteria, fungi, viruses) to focus in myprospective graduate career.
It was a coincidence that for reasons I do not recall,the stipend that I was offered in my first semester ofgraduate school (Dept. of Microbiology, University ofPuerto Rico - Medical Sciences Campus) was half thesalary of a normal stipend. For this reason, myeventual PhD thesis advisor (an authority in medicalmycology in Puerto Rico, Dr. Benjamín Bolaños-Rosero), offered me a part-time job as researchassistant. One of our milestones was understandingthe aerobiology of airborne fungi in the atmosphereof San Juan, PR [1]. We used to joke that airbornespores from fungi, which in we found to be in
higher concentrations than pollen in Puerto Rico in adaily basis, were “vampires” because theirconcentrations would peak at night and earlymorning (before the sunrise). Our studies alsoprovided preliminary data about relationships ofincreases in asthma visits to the ER and peakconcentrations of fungal spores. These preliminarydata eventually to studies supporting the notion thatpreviously uncharacterized fungal allergen, for whichthere are no commercial extracts for allergy testing,have potential induce immune reactivity inasthmatic and allergic rhinitis subjects. [2–4].
As a postdoc, I further open-up my research mindsetto integrate environmental health andepidemiological approaches. Nevertheless, myinterest in fungi and developing immunologicaltechniques were assets that according to one of myformer postdoc mentors (Dr. Patrick Breysse, now adirector in the CDC) was key in being recruited toJohns Hopkins. At the beginning I was somewhatlost—you can imagine participating in a meeting inwhich you were the only biologist (among experts inrespiratory diseases, environmental healthengineers, statisticians, pediatricians, amongothers). Eventually, I got the message andunderstood the goal of participating in suchmeetings—to address human health from aninterdisciplinary perspective. After Dr. ThomasHartung, internationally-known expert in toxicologyand director of the Center for Alternative to AnimalTesting at Hopkins), join my mentoring team,interdisciplinary collaborations emerged, forexample to study the aerobiology of mouse allergens(an important indoor allergen in Baltimore, MD) andthe indoor pro-inflammatory potential in homes ofpatients with COPD [5,6].
Immunology, Data Science, the Environmental, and Human Health
Felix E. Rivera-Mariani, PhDAssistant Professor, College of Biomedical Sciences, Larkin University
Between the last years as a postdoctoral fellow andjoining the College of Biomedical Sciences at LarkinUniversity as an Assistant Professor, I integrated a“hot topic” into my line of research: computationalapproaches in data science. I noticed the need tobecome expert in this field after a notice that I wasstruggling to communicate the message of findingsfrom my experiments with statistician. Suchanother coincidence could not have come at abetter moment—due to family health situations, Ihad to slow down a bit my research endeavors.This gave me the opportunity to dedicate,intensively, to training in data science—“breakfast,lunch, and dinner” of learning how to code in datascience in R, Matlab, and Python platforms. Today,these training came handy to addressenvironmental health situations throughcollaborative projects, for example in theaftermath of Hurricane Maria (R21ES029762-01, PIHumberto Cavallin), lunch in my lab at LarkinUniversity (https://www.riplrt.com), and providementoring opportunities to graduates students inmy lab, many of which stayed and are now keypersonnel of our research endeavors. They are nowfascinated with finding datasets to addressenvironmental health and immunological questions[7–12].
References:1. Quintero E, Rivera-Mariani FE,Bolaños-Rosero B. Analysis of environmentalfactors and their effects on fungal spores in theatmosphere of a tropical urban area (San Juan,Puerto Rico). Aerobiologia. 2010;26(2):113–24.2. Rivera-Mariani FE, Nazario-JimenezS, Lopez-Malpica, Bolanos-Rosero B. Sensitizationto airborne ascospores, basidiospores, and fungalfragments in allergic rhinitis and asthmatic subjectsin San Juan, Puerto Rico. Int Arch Allergy Immunol.2011;155(4):322–34.3. Rivera-Mariani FE, Nazario-Jimenez S, Lopez-
Malpica F, Bolanos-Rosero B. Skin testreactivity of allergic subjects tobasidiomycetes’ crude extracts in a tropicalenvironment. Med Mycol. 2011;49(8):887–91.
4. Rivera-Mariani FE, Bolaños-Rosero B.
Allergenicity of airborne basidiospores andascospores: Need for further studies. Aerobiologia.2012;28(2):83–97.5. Rivera-Mariani FE, Matsui EC,Breysse PN. Performance of the halogenimmunoassay to assess airborne mouse allergen-containing particles in a laboratory animal facility. JExpo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2014;24(1):3–8.6. Bose S, F R-M, Chen R, Williams D,Belli A, Aloe C, et al. Domestic exposure toendotoxin and respiratory morbidity in formersmokers with COPD. Indoor Air. 2016;26(5):734–42.7. Srour H, Fomenko R, Baguley J,Bellinger S, Jordan A, Sutton J, et al. Pilot study ofpublicly available data to evaluate the relationshipbetween forest fires and emergency departmentvisits due to asthma in the state of California.F1000Res. 2018 Aug 10;7:1232.8. Abdalhuk M, Jordan A, Wagimin R,Stamitoles C, Bellinger S, Baguley J, et al.Evaluating the associations of race, ethnicity, andfood allergens in the development of childhoodasthma: Re-analysis of publicly availableretrospective cross-sectional cohort data.F1000Res. 2018 Aug 7;7:1209.9. Baguley JK, Bellinger SV, Srour HH,Stateman AJ, Rivera-Mariani FE. Gender differencesin dendritic cell population in nasal and oral cavitybetween allergic and non-allergic subjects. J AllergyClin Immunol. 2019 Feb 1;143(2):AB228.10. Bellinger SV, Stateman AJ, SrourHH, Baguley JK, Rivera-Mariani FE. Evaluatingdifferences in prevalence of food allergies betweentwo geographic regions: Australia and US. J AllergyClin Immunol. 2019 Feb 1;143(2):AB268.11. Stateman AJ, Srour HH, Baguley JK,Bellinger SV, Rivera-Mariani FE. Comparisonbetween PM2.5 levels on east coast and state ofCalifornia in relationship to asthma. J Allergy ClinImmunol. 2019 Feb 1;143(2):AB24.12. Srour HH, Baguley JK, Bellinger SV,Stateman AJ, Rivera-Mariani FE. Comparing themagnitude of meteorological variables and airpollutants as contributing factors atopic dermatitissymptoms. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2019 Feb1;143(2):AB235.