Laura Van Winkle
University of California-Davis, CA·Physiology
Some chemicals that are easy to buy can badly injure the lungs when inhaled. Chloropicrin, used to sterilize soil before planting high-value crops, and phosgene are two such chemical threat agents.
- Fields
Physiology
Pharmacology
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
chloropicrin
phosgene
inhalation toxicology
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Define the dose–response relationship and acute injury pattern for inhaled chloropicrin and phosgene in mice, including establishing the LC50 and identifying injured cell types in conducting airways and olfactory epithelium.
- Test the hypothesis that phosgene is more potent than chloropicrin by comparing acute toxicity and lung edema across the biphasic death window in controlled inhalation exposures.
- Map the temporal pattern of lung injury and repair after exposure, tracking the influx of macrophages and neutrophils and the progression from acute damage to tissue remodeling.
- Test whether estrogen synthesis by lung macrophages is required for repair, using mice in which the estrogen-making enzyme CYP19A1 is disrupted in macrophages after chloropicrin or phosgene exposure.
More about the research
Both are poorly understood at the level of what they actually do inside the airways. Chloropicrin causes a striking two-wave pattern of death in animals, with fluid flooding the lungs either within the first day or again eight to ten days later. That delay hints that the immune response and the tissue's attempt at repair, not just the initial chemical burn, decide who survives. This project works out those mechanisms in mice so that treatments and exposure biomarkers can be designed.
Why it matters
Chloropicrin is widely available as an agricultural fumigant and phosgene is a known chemical threat, yet there are no targeted treatments for people who inhale them. Establishing the inhaled dose–response relationship, the cell types injured, biomarkers of exposure and the long-term consequences would give first responders and clinicians a basis for medical countermeasures, and could help protect farmworkers and nearby communities.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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The school
University of California-Davis: 49 labs on PI Pages, $1.0B a year on research, 647 research doctorates a year.
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