Please join Wayne State University's Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors (CURES) for their upcoming hybrid seminar on January 18, 2024 at 12:30 p.m. The seminar is free; registration is required. For those wishing to participate via Zoom, the link will be emailed to all registrants prior to Jan. 18; for those wishing to participate in person, please join us in the first floor seminar room in IBio, located at 6135 Woodward. 

The guest speaker will be Jonathan A. Doorn, Ph.D., professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Experimental Therapeutics in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Iowa. Dr. Doorn will present, “Mechanisms of Neurotoxicity for Organochlorines: Role of Astrocytes.”

Abstract:

While the etiopathology of neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental conditions remains elusive, it is hypothesized that environmental pollutants serve as risk factors for such adverse outcomes via toxic synergy with endogenous mediators and selectively targeting certain cell types. Our data indicate organochlorines disrupt dopamine homeostasis, producing catecholaminergic stress along with elevated levels of reactive neurotransmitter intermediates. Also, we have found polychlorinated biphenyl compounds and their human-relevant metabolites target astrocytes and their mitochondria, compromising bioenergetics. In summary, our work has shown cellular metabolism as a mechanistic target of environmental toxicants yielding adverse outcomes such as catecholaminergic stress with the production of reactive species.

Biography:

Dr. Jonathan Doorn is Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Experimental Therapeutics in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Iowa. He received a B.S. degree in Biochemistry from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI and a Ph.D. in Toxicology from the University of Michigan (NIH/NIEHS T32 training program). After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (NIH T32/F32), Dr. Doorn joined the faculty at the University of Iowa as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate and Full Professor. He is currently the Department Chair/DEO of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Experimental Therapeutics. Dr. Doorn’s NIH-funded research program has focused on the mechanism(s) via which environmental pollutants, including organochlorines, cause neurotoxicity and serve as risk factors for neurodegenerative disease. An emphasis of this work has been dopaminergic systems and disruption of dopamine metabolism and trafficking yielding aberrant levels of reactive neurotransmitter intermediates, such as biogenic aldehydes/catecholaldehydes, producing injury. This research has examined fundamental reactivity and chemistry of catecholaldehydes and their potential role as biomarkers of “catecholaminergic stress”. Recent work has investigated the role of glial cells (astrocytes) as mediators of injury.