Air Profiles

Who: Ann Bonham, professor and executive associate dean of the School of Medicine; Jesse Joad, professor of pediatric pulmonology; and Jerold Last, professor of pulmonary medicine

Interests: How inhaled air pollution affects human health

Key achievement: Showed that secondhand tobacco smoke deforms young children’s lungs, possibly irreversibly, and triggers asthma attacks. Recently found that smoke inhalation also alters activity in brain stem, which controls heart rate variability, breathing and lung function.

Burning question: How do cells in the lung react to smoke and common outdoor air pollutants, and how do those reactions affect airway, brain and heart activity?

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Who: Ruihong Zhang, professor of bioenvironmental engineering

Interests: Computer modeling and technology research and demonstration to reduce air emissions from dairies

Key achievement: Developed effective technologies for reducing methane gas and volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from dairy wastewater

Burning question: How much air pollution actually occurs on dairy farms and how can it be reduced cost-effectively?

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Who: Ian Kennedy, professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering

Interests: The ability of airborne nanoparticles (those one-billionth of a meter or smaller) to induce inflammation in human coronary arteries, which is thought to be a precursor of heart disease

Key achievement: Led team that identified which metal oxide nanoparticles do induce inflammation (one is zinc oxide) and which don’t (one is iron oxide)

Burning question: Beyond composition, what features of particles are important in triggering inflammation — size? shape? surface electrical charge?

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Who: Cort Anastasio, associate professor of atmospheric chemistry

Interests: Chemical reactions of inhaled particles in the human body

Key achievement: Led team that was first to devise a quantitative method for measuring important oxidant molecules in lungs, where the oxidants interfere with essential cell activities

Burning question: What are the chemical components of common airborne particles—such as a metal coating of iron or copper—that generate oxidants in the lungs?

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Who: Ken Giles, professor of biological and agricultural engineering

Interests: Reducing dust from California’s 6,000 almond farms, which produce more than 75 percent of world almond supply

Key achievement: Developed rapid measurements of dust emission from almond harvesting machines to give information to the industry in minutes instead of months

Burning question: How can we further reduce dust while maintaining high harvest productivity and quality nuts?

Related stories:

A Toll on Human Health
UC Davis researchers have made major contributions to understanding how airborne environmental toxins (such as smoke, dust and vehicle emissions) affect human health, particularly children’s health. One of their most troubling findings: Contrary to common belief, very young children’s lungs are more susceptible than adults’ to injury by environmental toxins, and those injuries cause significant deformities in essential airways that may be permanent. [more]

From Labs to Law Books
Discoveries by university researchers don’t die after they are described in doctoral theses and published in science journals. They live on in public service, by informing the actions of policymakers and legislators. The laws that govern automobile owners, electricity providers, tomato processors, oil refineries, construction-site managers and even dry cleaners rely on scientific facts supplied by air-quality experts at UC Davis and elsewhere. [more]

Climate-Altering Effects
UC Davis scientists are looking for players in global climate change in unusual places: seashores, dead plankton and pine trees. [more]

A Winning Approach
How long has UC Davis been exploring the effects of air pollution on human health? Here’s one measure: The National Institutes of Health recently renewed a grant for ozone research at UC Davis for the 32nd year. The project’s lead scientist, professor Charlie Plopper, jokes, “It has to be one of the few grants left with a three-digit ID number.” New grants now get numbers in the low five digits. [more]

Back to introduction

Links to more information:

Air Quality Research Center

John Muir Institute of the Environment

Institute of Transportation Studies

UC Davis–Caltrans Air Quality Project

Atmospheric Aerosols & Health program for graduate students

Stories and photos by Sylvia Wright, who writes about the environmental sciences for UC Davis.