UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Researcher
Earns Award for Outstanding New Environmental Scientists
-- Grant Will Support Research of Pesticide Exposure in ADHD --
New Brunswick, NJ – Jason Richardson, PhD, assistant professor of environmental and occupational medicine at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, is one of this year’s recipients of the Outstanding New Environmental Sciences (ONES) award granted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Science (NIEHS), a component of the National Institutes of Health. The five-year, $2.3 million grant will support Dr. Richardson’s research into pesticide exposure as a potential risk factor for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children.
According to Dr. Richardson, ADHD is rapidly becoming a significant public health issue, with approximately 7 to 12 percent of children in the United States currently affected. Although genetic factors appear to play a role in ADHD, no single gene has been unequivocally linked to the disease. Thus, complex gene-gene or gene-environmental interactions, along with environmental exposures, may underlie a significant number of cases. However, there have been few studies that have focused on environmental factors in ADHD.
“The behavioral dysfunction observed in children with ADHD has been linked to disruption of catecholamine systems in the brain, particularly the dopamine system,” says Dr. Richardson. “Thus, environmental toxicants that affect the proper development of the dopamine system may contribute to ADHD.”
Catecholamines are naturally occurring amines (organic compounds) including epinephrine, norepinephrine and dopamine, which function as neurotransmitters in the brain, playing a critical role in the control of movement and cognitive function. Dr. Richardson’s study will test whether alterations of the dopamine system caused by developmental pesticide exposure leads to behavioral dysfunction in mice similar to that observed in children with ADHD.
The NIEHS supports research to understand the effects of the environment on human health. The ONES program, in its second year of funding, identifies exceptionally talented scientists who are in the early, formative stages of their careers and who intend to make a long-term career commitment to research in the mission areas of the NIEHS. The program assists them in launching an innovative research program focusing on problems of environmental exposures and human biology, human pathophysiology and human disease.
Dr. Richardson, of Somerset, N.J., is a resident member of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute (EOHSI), an international resource that supports basic and clinical research in environmental health sciences and exposure assessment and fosters associated programs in environmental health education and public policy. EOHSI is a joint institute of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
About Robert Wood Johnson Medical School:
As one of the nation’s leading comprehensive medical schools, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in education, research, health care delivery, and the promotion of community health. In cooperation with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, the medical school’s principal affiliate, they comprise New Jersey’s premier academic medical center. In addition, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School has 34 other hospital affiliates and ambulatory care sites throughout the region.
As one of the eight schools of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey with 2,500 full-time and volunteer faculty, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School encompasses 22 basic science and clinical departments, hosts centers and institutes including The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, the Child Health Institute of New Jersey, the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, and the Stem Cell Institute of New Jersey. The medical school maintains educational programs at the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate levels for more than 1,500 students on its campuses in New Brunswick, Piscataway, and Camden, and provides continuing education courses for health care professionals and community education programs.
About the University of Medicine and Dentistry:
UMDNJ is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,500 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health, on five campuses. Last year, there were more than two million patient visits to UMDNJ facilities and faculty at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a mental health and addiction services network.
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