Grants and Fellowships | 2014

39 Research Grants for Returning Post-Doctoral Fellows Estimating Intra-Urban Exposure Patterns to Traffic-Related Pollution with a Distributed Sensors Network Research on the complex nature of air pollutants in populated areas is needed for obtaining a better understanding of exposure, source apportionment and representativeness of monitoring sites. Estimates of human exposure to air pollutants rely either on measurements taken by air quality monitoring sites, interpolation of measurements or model predictions. These methods, however, are unable to resolve the fine spatial structure of air pollutants concentrations in complex environments. This study aims to test the applicability of a novel and emerging technology for measuring air pollutants in an urban environment using a wireless distributed sensors network of small and affordable air pollution sensors. A network of several tens of stationary air quality nodes is deployed in Haifa, Israel. Each node is equipped with several pollution sensors (NO 2 , O 3 , CO and particles) as well as temperature, relative humidity, GPS and communication modules. Applying the network of tens of sensors over a period of few months will result in multiple samplings of each location, and allow a robust analysis. Research publications (1) Moltchanov, S., Levy, I., Etzion, Y., Lerner, U., Broday, D.M., & Fishbain, B. (2014). On the feasibility of measuring air pollution at dense urban areas by wireless distributed sensor networks. Science of the Total Environment, 502 , 537–547. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.09.059 Ilan Levy 1 | David Broday 1 Barak Fishbain 1 1. Technion - Israel Institute of Technology 2012- Chemical Exposure, Granulosa Cell Exosomes, and Oocyte/Embryo Quality There is currently a concern regarding adverse effects from exposure to environmental chemicals that may act through disruption of the endocrine system (EDCs). In a recent in vitro study, we showed a dose-response association of bisphenol A (BPA) with the final stages of human oocyte maturation (Human Reproduction, October 2013). The mechanism(s) by which EDCs such as BPA and phthalates may affect oocyte maturation and embryo quality is not well understood. We hypothesize that exposure to BPA and phthalates impairs the signal transmission within the ovarian follicle. Novel studies have proposed that intracellular transmission of extracellular vesicles such as exosomes within the follicle might involve secretion and uptake of microRNAs (miRNAs). MiRNAs are short non-coding RNAs that target complementary mRNAs to silence their translation into proteins. Growing evidence indicates that exosome- contained miRNAs can transfer molecular signals among tissues through human fluids. The aims of this pilot study are to determine the associations of follicular fluid levels of BPA and phthalate metabolites among miRNA granulosa cell-derived exosomes with oocyte maturation and day three embryo quality. Ronit Machtinger 1,2 Andrea Baccarelli 3 Russ Hauser 3 Catherine Racowsky 3,4 1. The Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer 2. Tel Aviv University 3. Harvard University, USA 4. Brigham and Women's Hospital, USA 2013-