Publications

High doses of inhaled diesel engine exhaust produce lung tumors in laboratory animals and may cause cancer in humans. Nitropyrenes are products of diesel engine exhaust and can be activated by the body\'s metabolism to form highly reactive products that interact with DNA to form DNA adducts. The adducts can interfere with the normal processes of DNA replication and can lead to genetic mutations that may result in carcinogenesis. Dr.

Ozone is a highly reactive gas that is a pervasive air pollutant at ground level. It is a major component of urban smog, forming when emissions from mobile and industrial sources interact with sunlight. The study of the effects of long-term ozone exposure on lung collagen, described in this report, was one of eight studies in a Collaborative Project supported by the NTP and the HEI. The others included studies of lung biochemistry, structure, and function, and one study of nasal structure and function. Dr.

Ozone is a highly reactive gas that is a pervasive air pollutant at ground level. It is a major component of urban smog, forming when emissions from mobile and industrial sources interact with sunlight. Assessing the risk of adverse health effects from such exposures is difficult because only limited data are available on the actual ozone concentrations that people experience. Under the HEI ozone sampler program, three studies were designed to advance the development and testing of personal ozone samplers. The studies were conducted by Dr. Hackney and colleagues at Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center (Part I), Dr. Koutrakis and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health (Part II), and Dr. Yanagisawa from the Harvard School of Public Health (Part III). 

Both environmental and genetic factors are believed to contribute to the multistage process that results in carcinogenesis. Therefore, determining the health risks associated with exposure to known and suspected carcinogenic chemicals is essential for informed decision-making by regulatory agencies. Dr. Roger W. Giese and colleagues at Northeastern University developed sensitive and specific techniques for measuring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)-DNA adducts, a class of DNA adducts associated with exposure to constituents of diesel emissions and other combustion products.