Zelieann Craig
University of Arizona, AZ·Physiology
Phthalates are chemicals found in cosmetics, personal care products, food packaging, medical devices and some pill coatings. Because they leach out of these products, nearly everyone is exposed.
- Fields
Physiology
Pharmacology
Biology
- Topics
phthalates
endocrine disruptors
reproductive toxicology
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Mar 2030
What they work on
- Identify the tissues and molecular events that raise free fatty acid levels inside ovarian follicles of mice exposed to human-relevant phthalate mixtures, testing the role of the LXR-SREBP1c pathway that controls fat production.
- Determine how phthalate mixtures raise acylcarnitines, molecules that shuttle fats into mitochondria, in mouse antral follicles, testing whether reduced PPAR-driven fatty acid oxidation is responsible.
- Test whether long-term exposure to epidemiologically based phthalate mixtures reproduces human metabolic and reproductive disorders in the mouse model.
- Quantify normal and phthalate-altered folliculogenesis (ovarian follicle development) in mice and nonhuman primates, both in vivo and in cultured follicles, using measures selected to feed computational models.
- Build in silico models of folliculogenesis for each species that predict follicle responses to phthalates, enabling in vitro to in vivo and cross-species extrapolation.
More about the research
Women of reproductive age carry especially high levels. Population studies link phthalates to early menopause, fewer egg-containing follicles in the ovary, pregnancy loss, obesity and fatty liver disease. How these chemicals cause such harm is not known. The lab studies how phthalates damage the ovary and metabolism, and how to predict their effects in humans.
Why it matters
Phthalate exposure may contribute to infertility, early menopause, pregnancy loss, obesity and fatty liver disease in women. Pinpointing the tissues and pathways phthalates disrupt could guide screening tools and treatments for phthalate-related reproductive and metabolic disorders. Computer models that predict ovarian harm in primates could improve how chemicals are screened for risks to women's fertility.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Adam Krieg
Oregon Health & Science University, OR·Physiology
Test whether priming macaques of advanced reproductive age or with poor ovarian response with anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) improves their response to gonadotropin stimulation and IVF outcomes.
Michelle Kossack
University of Cincinnati, OH·Pharmacology·Early-career
Determine how much the ovary contributes to heart damage caused by TCDD (a dioxin pollutant) in female zebrafish exposed as juveniles.
Yong-Xu Wang
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, MA·Physiology
Test whether a newly identified adipokine, a hormone released by fat tissue, resolves NASH and associated metabolic problems in two different NASH mouse models.
The school
University of Arizona: 36 labs on PI Pages, $1.0B a year on research, 487 research doctorates a year.
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