Anna Nolan
New York University, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Firefighters and other first responders who worked at the World Trade Center (WTC) site after September 11, 2001, breathed in toxic dust, and many still live with lung disease and disability. This pilot project asks why that lung damage persists.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
World Trade Center
WTC lung injury
particulate matter
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Identify firefighters exposed to WTC dust who show chronic over-inflammation, accelerated aging and high circulating autoantibodies, and link these markers to lung function and health measures.
- Test whether the FIREHOUSE weight-loss diet changed aging and autoantibody signatures in WTC-exposed firefighters, using the trial's stored samples.
- Integrate microbiome, metabolomics, inflammation and genetic data from the trial using systems biology to build disease models and find mechanisms of WTC lung injury.
- Determine in aging mice with metabolic syndrome whether WTC dust plus a high-fat diet speeds aging and raises inflammation and autoantibodies, and whether blocking an anti-inflammatory cytokine worsens lung and heart remodeling.
More about the research
It focuses on how metabolic syndrome (a cluster of conditions such as excess weight and high blood fats), faster biological aging and long-lasting inflammation may combine to keep the lungs injured.
Why it matters
WTC-exposed first responders face long-term lung disease, and those with metabolic syndrome are at greater risk. By explaining how diet, aging, inflammation and autoantibodies interact, this work could help clinicians better manage these responders' health. It may also lay groundwork for targeted immune or lifestyle-based treatments for people harmed by toxic dust.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Stephanie Tuminello
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test whether World Trade Center exposure accelerates biological aging in male responders, comparing blood DNA methylation clocks such as Horvath, GrimAge and DunedinPACE with unexposed men from the general population.
Andres Cardenas
Stanford University, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test whether a 12-month in-home HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter intervention slows epigenetic and proteomic aging clocks in the nasal lining and blood of older former smokers with eosinophilic COPD, using samples from a randomized sham-controlled trial.
Frank Duca
University of Minnesota, MN·Physiology
Assess whether glyphosate exposure at different developmental timepoints promotes obesity or impaired glucose control in male and female mice fed a chow or high-fat diet.
The school
New York University: 72 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 540 research doctorates a year.
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