Current Research Projects:
Heavy Metal Toxicity and Marine Mammal Physiology

The bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) may be best known for the awe induced by sightings of such a graceful creature of immense size. The bowhead whale is an enigma in that it maintains its gargantuan frame feeding on plankton.

Marine biologists have been alarmed at the exponential rise in cadmium levels in the kidney and liver of this species, already brought to the verge of extinction by whaling.

Only the Native Americans of the Alaskan North Slope Borough are approved by the International Whaling Commission to hunt the bowhead whale, continuing and preserving the traditional culture of centuries.

As these whales represent the primary food source for many Native Americans, and the kidneys - which concentrate cadmium - are a delicacy, the Native Americans are at high risk of gross heavy metal toxicity.

Specific Aims:

  1. Cells from the kidneys, livers and brains of the endangered cetacean species are collected from biannual harvests on the North Slope of Alaska. Dr. Jim Kaysen was sent to Barrow for this cell collection in May 1997.
  2. These cells are being cultured three dimensionally in rotating wall vessel technology to produce three-dimensional models.
  3. Three-dimensional models of cetacean kidney, liver and brain will be subjected to and monitored for toxicological contamination and response to toxic insult.
  4. Toxicologically-compromised tissues from these organs will be monitored for immune cytokine response.
  5. We are investigating the mechanisms of heavy metal toxicity, including the structure and binding affinity of metallothionein in the bowhead whale; and
  6. We are identifying and elucidating the renal receptor for metallothionein.

Links

Bowhead Whales

Barrow, Alaska

Rotating Wall Vessels

Metallothionein

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