The Association for Women Geoscientists (AWG) is starting a new Distinguished Lecturer series on April 5, 5 pm Mountain time. The first lecturer is Dr. Kathrin Schilling from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. AWG recommends that anyone interested for Dr. Schilling’s talk to register for it using either the QR code or the website link given above in the featured image graphic or in the same graphic posted at the end of this blog.
Lecture Title: Exposure assessment and disease detection: How Metal Stable Isotopes offer unique insights
Lecture Abstract
Our body’s isotope metallomics is the fingerprint of our health. Metal isotopic signatures in our body can vary depending on endogenous and environmental factors such as redox reactions, adsorption, and ligand coordination of metalloproteins. Metabolic reaction rates or binding strength of lighter isotopes differ from that for heavier isotopes. This difference is reflected in the isotopic composition of blood, urine and tissue. Thus, natural metal isotopic biomarker has a vast potential to help characterize sources of exposure, pharmacokinetics of metals in the human body, mechanisms of toxicity, and minute changes of metabolic processes caused by disease development and progression. Thanks to recent rapid technological and instrumental progress, isotope ratio analysis is 100 times more sensitive than concentration measurements.
Dr. Kathrin Scilling’s Brief Bio
Dr. Schilling is an analytical and isotope (geo)chemist. Her interdisciplinary research brings high-precision metal isotope analysis that are currently firmly located in Earth Sciences into a synergistic space with multiple new approaches in Environmental Health Sciences. Dr Schilling explores various metal isotope systems (e.g., selenium, zinc, copper) as biomarker for environmental carcinogens, nutrient status and as source tracers of metal exposure using high-resolution multi-collector ICP-mass spectrometry. Dr Schilling received the Young Investigator Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2019 for her work on zinc stable isotope as potential diagnostic biomarker for pancreatic cancer.
AWG’s Distinguished Lecturer Program presently includes 40 speakers from 24 US states and from 4 other countries. Over 100 lectures on 14 topics are offered and are listed on AWG’s DLP website page at https://www.awg.org/AWGDistinguishedLectureProgram. Lecturers are available for in-person lectures and many speakers will also do their lectures via zoom. Requests for in-person and/or zoom lectures can be made following the instructions posted at https://www.awg.org/AWGDLPRequests. The 2023 DLP lecture program listing is also available as a pdf on the DLP website page.
