Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The long-term vision for my research program is to advance understanding of blood plasma function in freshwater fish and other vertebrate animals and to establish the potential for plasma to be used as a non-lethal diagnostic tool in environmental effects monitoring programs. This research program will develop and demonstrate how to incorporate the use of high throughput molecular methods and bioinformatic software tools into environmental monitoring and assessment program policies and procedures. These methods will be able to identify exposure to aquatic contaminants that alter lipid metabolism and will be capable of predicting long-term health outcomes in freshwater fish. My research program will address three inter-related objectives: 1. To develop novel proteogenomic bioinformatics tools that enable the efficient non-lethal monitoring of currently un-sequenced wild fish species using proteomic approaches 2. Understand the physiological causes of molecular expression in fish blood plasma under stress, and how molecular responses that are specifically related to metabolic and bioenergetic functions are affected by challenges in their natural environment the purpose of this is to establish “normal” ranges of molecules under realistic stressful scenarios 3. Mechanistically characterize how contaminants affect metabolism and bioenergetics by examining the molecular effects of chemicals such as lipid regulating drugs and perfluorinated chemicals and then identifying unique sets of protein and metabolite biomarkers that are specific to contaminant exposure This research program will increase our understanding of the role of blood plasma in vertebrate physiology and function. This research will also contribute to the body of knowledge about the effects of perfluorinated contaminants that are present in North American drinking water and known to accumulate in humans and wildlife. Additionally, the information will help to reduce the use of animals in research and will be especially useful in protecting endangered and threatened species in Canada. This research will also help to train 11 highly qualified personnel in environmental science, molecular biology, and instrumental analysis. This body of work will benefit Canadian economically by increasing society's ability to interact with nature and wildlife while they enjoy activities such as sport-fishing, camping, and swimming in lakes and rivers.