{"id":250,"date":"2010-06-09T14:57:51","date_gmt":"2010-06-09T14:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/biology\/2010\/06\/17\/dr-rebecca-sommer-wins-nih-funding-for-arsenic-research-related-to-obesity-liver-disease-hyperglycemia\/"},"modified":"2021-05-10T13:09:18","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T17:09:18","slug":"dr-rebecca-sommer-wins-nih-funding-for-arsenic-research-related-to-obesity-liver-disease-hyperglycemia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/biology\/2010\/06\/09\/dr-rebecca-sommer-wins-nih-funding-for-arsenic-research-related-to-obesity-liver-disease-hyperglycemia\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Rebecca Sommer Wins NIH Funding for Arsenic Research Related to Obesity, Liver Disease &amp; Hyperglycemia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/biology\/files\/2010\/06\/Sommer_faculty_mug.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-416 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/biology\/files\/2010\/06\/Sommer_faculty_mug.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"124\" height=\"148\" \/><\/a>Dr. Rebecca Sommers was recently awarded an NIH, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA) for $419,048 for three years, 2010-2013. Titled, &#8220;<strong><em>Developmental Arsenic Exposure Causes Obesity, Liver Disease, and Hyperglycemia in Male Mice<\/em><\/strong>,&#8221; the project seeks to determine the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which developmental exposures to lower-levels of arsenic increase body weight, fatty-liver disease and symptoms consistent with type-2 diabetes in adult male mice while not causing the same effects in females.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, developmental arsenic-exposure of female mice induces liver inflammation in adulthood and we&#8217;re trying to learn the mechanism of that as well. Sommer&#8217;s lab is currently using a combination of gene expression (quantitative-PCR), histological, and protein assay (Westerns, ELISAs) approaches to determine how developmental arsenic causes disease later in life.<\/p>\n<p>If they can determine how these effects are caused in mice, it usually works a similar way in humans (but not always!), and they&#8217;ll be able to better understand the risks posed to people that are exposed to arsenic in their drinking water.<\/p>\n<p>This is important in Maine, in that Maine has naturally occurring arsenic in its groundwater such that approximately 30% of the private drinking wells in Maine are estimated to have more than the current USEPA regulatory limit of 10 parts per billion (ppb).<\/p>\n<p>Lastly, the grant will support the research activities of at least 4 students per year, including research stipends for 2-3 students to work full-time, 8-10 weeks each summer 2010-2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Rebecca Sommers was recently awarded an NIH, National Institute of Environmental&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_batesModPostContentOverride_prepend":false,"_batesModPostContentOverride_append":false,"_batesModPostContentOverride_append_before_footer":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7050,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions\/7050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}