U of A secures grant to combat hazardous dust effects from mines

The University of Arizona has received a five-year federal grant of $14.8 million to help understand and mitigate health threats of dust from mine tailings and associated hazardous fungal spores, specifically within mining communities.

The grant was issued by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a division of the National Institutes of Health, to UA’s Superfund Research Center. Also known as the DUST Center: Hazardous Dust in Drylands — Exposure, Health Impacts, and Mitigation, the center was established in 1989 and has been funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1997.

The center’s work is focused on “mining towns and Native Nations across the Arizona-Sonora border region, where residents face chronic inhalation of arsenic-rich dust from mine tailings — waste left over from mining operations,” a UA news release says. 

“We are one of the very few programs in the United States that have been continually funded for more than three decades,” said Raina Maier, professor at UA’s College of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences and associate director of the center. “Securing a competing continuation award of this scale is highly uncommon and underscores the center's exceptional record of scientific and community impact.”

The $14.8 million grant will support four new integrated research projects, two led by UA’s Coit College of Pharmacy and two led by the College of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences.

The four projects reflect the Superfund Research Center’s multidisciplinary approach of pairing biomedical and environmental science to break the chain of exposure before disease can take hold within affected Arizona communities, the news release says. 

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The first project, led by Yin Chen, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology and a BIO5 Institute member, will explore how “arsenic and other metalloids affect lung cells and increase vulnerability to mold exposure.”

The second project is about “building a mechanistic model of how chronic inhalation of metalloid and fungus-laden dust particles can cause fibrotic lung disease.”

“We have some early indications that arsenic exposure may affect the infectivity levels of fungal spores,” said Xinxin Ding, head of the Coit College of Pharmacy Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, as well as director and lead principal investigator on the new grant. “We also have interesting data showing that inhalation exposure to the dust actually generates more of the most toxic kind of arsenic in the lungs than arsenic exposure in drinking water.”

The third project, led by Jon Chorover, professor and head of the Department of Environmental Science in the College of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences, will investigate how the size and physical and chemical properties of mine-tailing dust particles influence the release of toxic metals into lung fluids.

The fourth project, led by Maier, builds on previous research to “to revegetate acidic mine tailings using carefully selected native plants and compost applications.”

“The Southwest is hot and dry, so we generate a lot of dust that gets carried by the wind,” Maier said. “These conditions also make it challenging to establish plants. We are working to determine the minimum inputs and best seasonal timing to effectively establish plants on a site. Mining companies spend a lot of money revegetating their sites and informed research like this helps them reduce these costs.”