Appendix A
Biosketches of the Committee on Inorganic Arsenic
Joseph H. Graziano (Chair) is professor of environmental health sciences and pharmacology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. His research career has been devoted to understanding the consequences of exposure to metals on both the molecular and population levels. Dr. Graziano’s past research was devoted to lead poisoning and has contributed to understanding of the adverse effects of lead exposure on childhood development. His laboratory developed the oral drug that is now widely used around the world to treat childhood lead poisoning. More recently, his research has aimed to understand the consequences of arsenic exposure on the US and Bangladeshi populations and to devise strategies to reduce toxicity and provide arsenic-free drinking water. Dr. Graziano received his PhD from Rutgers University. He is a member of the National Research Council Committee on Potential Health Risks from Recurrent Lead Exposure of DOD Firing-Range Personnel and a past member of the Committee on the Superfund Site Assessment and Remediation in the Coeur d’Alene River Basin.
Habibul Ahsan is Louis Block Professor of Health Studies (Epidemiology), Medicine (Genetic Medicine), and Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. He also holds appointments as director of the Center for Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention and associate director for population research at the university’s Comprehensive Cancer Center. He studies the relationships between environmental and genomic factors in cancer and other diseases. He has published extensively on the molecular epidemiology and prevention of health effects of arsenic exposure and on the molecular and genetic epidemiology of breast and other cancers. Dr. Ahsan received his MD from Dhaka University and his MMedSc in epidemiology from the University of Western Australia.
Sandra J.S. Baird is a human health toxicologist with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Office of Research and Standards. She supports the air toxics and drinking-water programs through the development of toxicity values, evaluation of the implications of new toxicologic information and guidance, evaluation of site-specific toxicity and exposure-assessment issues, and development of guidance in support of risk-based decision-making. Her research interests include combining quantitative methods and toxicologic data to characterize uncertainty and improve understanding in the process of extrapolating human health risks from animal bioassay data. Dr. Baird received her MS and PhD in toxicology from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. She was a member of the National Research Council Committee to Review the Draft IRIS Assessment of Formaldehyde.
Aaron Barchowsky is professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the University of Pittsburgh. His research interests are in investigating the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying cardiovascular and lung diseases caused by environmental exposures to metals and chronic changes in redox status. In vivo and cell-cultured–based studies focus on the molecular pathology and etiology of vascular disease caused by chronic exposure to low concentrations of arsenic in drinking water. The cell-signaling pathways that mediate arsenic-stimulated pathogenic changes in endothelial cells and perivascular progenitor cells are being investigated. Dr. Barchowsky is an active member of the Soci-
ety of Toxicology and recently served as president of the Metals Specialty Section and chair of the Education Committee. He received his PhD in pharmacology from Duke University.
Hugh A. Barton is an associate research fellow with Pfizer, Inc., working on mechanistic modeling of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. He is a member of the global Translational Research Leadership Team that is providing scientific and managerial oversight of application of modeling and biomarkers in drug discovery. He specializes in the use of physiologically based pharmacokinetic and mechanistic pharmacodynamic modeling to address low-dose, interspecies, and interroute extrapolations in estimating risks. He was a toxicologist in consulting companies and in the US Environmental Protection Agency before joining Pfizer. Dr. Barton received his PhD in toxicology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Gary P. Carlson is professor emeritus of health sciences at Purdue University. His research has focused on the relationship between the metabolism of chemicals and their toxic actions, including an interest in activation and detoxification pathways in the liver and other target organs. His work has involved using a variety of techniques ranging from in vitro assays to animal bioassays to examine the biochemical mechanisms by which chemical agents exert their toxic and carcinogenic actions. Dr. Carlson received his PhD in pharmacology from the University of Chicago. He is a national associate of the National Academies, having served on many National Research Council committees, most recently as a member of the Committee on Tetrachloroethylene and as current chair of the Committee on Toxicology.
Mary E. Davis is a professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology of the West Virginia University Health Sciences Center. Her research interests are in the toxicology of environmental and occupational pollutants, including water-disinfection byproducts, halogenated solvents, and arsenic. She is particularly interested in mechanisms of toxicity in the liver, kidneys, and vascular system. Dr. Davis was treasurer of the Society of Toxicology and is a former president of the society’s Allegheny–Erie Regional Chapter. She received her PhD in pharmacology from Michigan State University. She was a member of the National Research Council Committee on Assessing Human Health Risks of Trichloroethylene and Committee on Tetrachloroethylene and currently serves on the Committee on Toxicology.
Yvonne P. Dragan is associate director of US safety assessment and head of molecular and investigative toxicology at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals. Before joining AstraZeneca, she worked at the National Center for Toxicological Research of the Food and Drug Administration, where she was program director of the Hepatic Toxicology Center and director of the Division of Systems Toxicology. Dr. Dragan also held positions at Ohio State University and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where her research focused on chemical carcinogenesis. She has been active in the Society of Toxicology, having served as an elected member of the Executive Council and as president of the Carcinogenesis Specialty Section and currently serving as a member of the elected council of the Carcinogenesis Specialty Section. She received her PhD in pharmacology and toxicology from the Medical College of Virginia.
Rebecca C. Fry is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering of the University of North Carolina School of Global Public Health. She uses environmental toxicogenomics, toxicoepigenomics, and systems-biology approaches to understand the mechanisms of arsenic-induced carcinogenesis. A broad goal is to identify the genes and their encoded proteins that protect humans against or sensitize them to arsenic-induced disease. State-of-the-art technologies are used, including next-generation sequencing to understand genomewide consequences of arsenic exposure. Her laboratory studies arsenic-exposed populations and varied disease outcomes to identify signaling pathways that are differentially modulated in response to exposure. A major goal of the research is to identify mechanisms of prevention of arsenic-induced disease. Dr. Fry received her MS and PhD in biology from Tulane University.
Chris Gennings is professor of biostatistics at the Virginia Commonwealth University and director of the research incubator for the Center for Clinical and Translational Research. Her research interests include nonlinear regression modeling, categorical data analysis, analysis of complex mixtures, and statistical issues in mixture toxicology. She has a research project on empirical approaches for evaluating sufficiently similar complex mixtures and is the director of a training grant focused on the integration of mixture toxicology, toxicogenomics, and statistics. Dr. Gennings received her PhD in biostatistics from the Virginia Commonwealth University. She was a member of the National Research Council Committee on the Health Risks of Phthalates.
Gary L. Ginsberg is a senior toxicologist in the Connecticut Department of Public Health Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Assessment. He is involved in the use of toxicology and risk-assessment principles to evaluate human exposure to chemicals in air, water, soil, food, and the workplace. He has published in toxicology, carcinogenesis, physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling, interindividual variability, and children’s risk assessment. He also holds an adjunct faculty position at the Yale School of Medicine and is an assistant clinical professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. Dr. Ginsberg received his PhD in toxicology from the University of Connecticut. He was a member of the National Research Council Committee on Improving Risk Analysis Approaches Used by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Margaret R. Karagas is professor and section head of biostatistics and epidemiology in the Department of Community and Family Medicine of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. She also holds appointments as codirector of epidemiology and chemoprevention at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center and as director of the research design, epidemiology, biostatistics, and ethics component of the Dartmouth SYNERGY. She is director of the formative Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center at Dartmouth. She conducts epidemiologic studies of human malignancies, in particular melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancer, bladder cancer, and large bowel neoplasms. Recent work has focused on multiple routes of exposure to arsenic and risks of cancer, maternal and infant infection, and other birth and childhood outcomes. Collaborative efforts entail the design and application of novel biomarkers. Dr. Karagas received her PhD from the University of Washington. She was a member of the European Food Safety Authority Working Group on Arsenic and of the National Research Council Committee on the Analysis of Cancer Risks in Populations Near Nuclear Facilities.
James S. MacDonald is founder and president of Chrysalis Pharma Consulting, a firm focused on bringing new molecular entities from the lead optimization stage to proof-of-concept in patients. Over a period of 31 years before founding the company, he held several leadership positions at Merck and Schering-Plough, retiring as executive vice president of preclinical development. In the latter role, he oversaw the company’s Department of Drug Safety and Department of Drug Metabolism/Pharmacokinetics and led efforts to move new molecular entities from discovery into clinical trials. Dr. MacDonald is an adjunct professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the Indiana University School of Medicine. His research interests lie in assessing strategies for identifying potential human cancer hazards and in using mode-ofaction data in assessing human relevance. Dr. MacDonald received his PhD in toxicology from the University of Cincinnati and is a diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology.
Ana Navas-Acien is associate professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a physician–epidemiologist with a specialty in preventive medicine and public health. Her research interests are in cardiovascular effects and diabetes related to chronic exposure to arsenic in drinking water and food. She is currently the principal investigator in a large prospective cohort study of arsenic exposure and metabolism in American Indian communities. Other research interests include the cardiometabolic and renal effects of cadmium and lead and characterization of secondhand-smoke exposure in indoor public places. Dr. Navas-Acien received her MD from the University of Granada School of Medicine in Spain, her MPH from the National School of
Health in Madrid, and her PhD in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. She was a member of the National Research Council Committee on Science for EPA’s Future and serves on the Committee on Emerging Science for Environmental Health Decisions.
Marie E. Vahter is professor at the Institute of Environmental Medicine of the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and head of the institute’s Unit of Metals and Health. Her research interests are in the human health effects and associated mechanisms of arsenic, cadmium, and lead and in factors that influence susceptibility to these metals, such as metabolism, genetic predisposition, and nutrition. Her recent work focuses on early-life metal exposure. She has also been involved in health risk assessments for a variety of metals throughout her career. Dr. Vahter received her PhD in toxicology from the Karolinska Institute. She was a member of the two National Research Council Committees on Arsenic in Drinking Water.
Robert O. Wright is professor of pediatrics and preventive medicine and director of the Division of Environmental Health at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. His research interests are in effect modifiers of metal toxicity, including gene–environment interactions in neurodevelopment and fetal growth. The role of epigenetic biomarkers in reproductive health is a particular interest. Before joining Mount Sinai, Dr. Wright was associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, associate professor of environmental health at the Harvard School of Public Health, and an attending physician at Children’s Hospital in Boston. Dr. Wright received his MD from the University of Michigan and his MPH in epidemiology and biostatistics from the Harvard School of Public Health.
