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National EPA-Tribal Science Forum

UC San Diego’s Superfund Research Program gave an invited panel presentation at the National EPA-Tribal Science Forum in Traverse City, Michigan on June 8, 2010.

UC San Diego’s Superfund Research Program gave an invited panel presentation at the National EPA-Tribal Science Forum in Traverse City, Michigan on June 8, 2010. The US EPA Office of Research and Development (Office of Science Policy) helped organize the four-day Tribal Science Forum (June 6-10). Organizers framed the Forum’s topics around the theme “Mother Earth: Indigenous Knowledge and Science to Promote Positive Change.” Dr. Keith Pezzoli and Hiram Sarabia presented UCSD’s SRP Research Translation and Community Outreach activities along with their tribal partner, Dr. Marshal Cheung (Director, 29 Palms Band of Mission Indians Tribal EPA). The title of their joint panel presentation was: Tribal-University Partnerships: Building Capacity of Tribal EPAs to Use State-of-the-Art Molecular Detection Technologies to Protect the Environment and Human Health. Dr. Robert Tukey and Dr. Shu-Juan Chen of UCSD played a key role in the preparations leading up to this presentation. Dr. Tukey is the Director of UCSD’s SRP; he and Dr. Chen have been helping build tribal capacity through a university-tribal partnership. Thanks to a material transfer agreement between UCSD’s SRP (Dr. Tukey’s lab) and the 29 Palms Tribal EPA, Dr. Marshal Cheung’s tribal lab now has NIEHS SRP-generated biomolecular technology (a P450 Human Reporter Gene system in the form of a cellular bioassay). The 29 Palms Tribal EPA is using this NIEHS SRP technology to develop a dioxin testing program focused on soil and water. This SRP-Tribal collaboration thus responds to one of the National Tribal Science Forum’s stated priorities to deal with dioxins. As noted on their web site: The National EPA-Tribal Science Council (TSC) was created in partnership with tribal representatives to help integrate Agency and tribal interests, specifically with respect to environmental science issues. The TSC provides a forum for tribes and EPA to identify priority environmental science issues and collaboratively design effective solutions. The Council seeks to increase tribal involvement in EPA’s scientific activities - building bridges between tribal and Agency programs. http://www.epa.gov/osp/tribes/who.htm

06/24 at 12:08 AM in Research Support Cores • Research Translation Core • Community Outreach Core • (0) Comments