Grant: Canada Research Chairs

As Canada Research Chair in Aquatic Toxicology, Dr. Simmons aims to reduce impact on aquatic ecosystems and wild fish species by committing to understanding fish health by sampling biofluids such as blood and epidermal mucus using non-lethal methods. Using the innovative approaches of proteomics and metabolomics to analyze these biofluids is high-throughput and cost-saving, and will benefit Canada by providing more holistic and economical methods for environmental effects monitoring. The objectives of the proposed research program are: (1) to expand the use of molecular expression patterns (MEPs) specific to individual environmental stressors to include fish epidermal mucus proteins, in addition to plasma MEPs, that are linked to higher-level adverse outcomes. (2) to increase our knowledge of epidermal mucus function in vertebrate fish by determining the phenotypic plasticity of protein and metabolite abundance. (3) to develop and expand an online database tool containing MEPs specific to environmental stress and indicative of adverse outcomes. Non-targeted proteomic and metabolomic analyses offer researchers the opportunity to measure molecular changes without a priori knowledge, and thus, enable the discovery of novel molecular initiating events and key molecular events specific to environmental stressors, which can inform adverse outcome pathways. We will use these innovative approaches together with fish blood plasma and epidermal mucus to better understand fish health and the effects of aquatic contaminants on fish and aquatic ecosystems. Very few research programs in Canada are geared towards understanding the health of wild fish and also employ non-lethal or non-invasive methods. As researchers in Canada, we are bound by the principles laid out by the Canadian Council on Animal Care for the ethical use of animals in research. The ultimate goal is to reduce the number of animals used in research and to cause as little pain and suffering to animals as possible. It is therefore ethically questionable to take the lives of fish from already stressed populations in polluted aquatic environments that are impacted by human activities; we know pain, stress, and suffering already likely exist. The novel research program of Dr. Simmons aims to reduce the impact on aquatic ecosystems and wild fish species by understanding fish health by sampling biofluids such as blood and epidermal mucus using non-lethal methods.