Award Abstract # 1810769
RAPID: Timely Assessment of Water Quality to Reveal the Potential Ecological and Health Impact of Hurricanes at Puerto Rico

NSF Org: CBET
Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems
Recipient: NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
Initial Amendment Date: November 28, 2017
Latest Amendment Date: November 28, 2017
Award Number: 1810769
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Karl Rockne
CBET
 Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems
ENG
 Directorate for Engineering
Start Date: December 1, 2017
End Date: May 31, 2018 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $98,515.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $98,515.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2018 = $0.00
History of Investigator:
  • April Gu (Principal Investigator)
    aprilgu@cornell.edu
  • Akram Alshawabkeh (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Ameet Pinto (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Northeastern University
360 HUNTINGTON AVE
BOSTON
MA  US  02115-5005
(617)373-5600
Sponsor Congressional District: 07
Primary Place of Performance: Northeastern University
360 Hungtington Ave
Boston
MA  US  02115-5005
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
07
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): HLTMVS2JZBS6
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): Hurricane Harvey 2017,
EnvE-Environmental Engineering
Primary Program Source: 01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 7914
Program Element Code(s): 071Y00, 144000
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.041

ABSTRACT

CBET - 1810769 Gu, April

Back-to-back hurricanes in Puerto Rico have caused much of the sewage treatment infrastructure on the island to be non-operational. As a result, raw sewage and other contaminants have been released into coastal waters, streams, and rivers. Understanding the impact of catastrophic events like hurricanes on water distribution systems requires rapid data acquisition soon after the event. The goal of this project is to provide water quality toxicity data to assess the recovery process in Puerto Rico's drinking water supply and surface water. This will be done using novel state-of-the-art toxicity assays developed by the research team. The results of this research will provide a one-of-a-kind opportunity to quantify risks to public health during recovery.

The study will apply next-generation, toxicogenomics-enabled in vitro assays for timely and informative water quality monitoring, coupled with strain-resolved metagenomic data to identify risks originating from the presence of host of microbial pathogens. The results have the potential to lead to a paradigm shift in water remediation efficacy assessment from older methods that frequently suffer from bias and limited chemical and microbiological information. This will provide timely and useful information needed to facilitate containment and response strategies development and, to help inform the public and government of any potential ecological and health impacts associated the recent extreme weather events.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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Lan, Jiaqi and Rahman, Sheikh Mokhlesur and Gou, Na and Jiang, Tao and Plewa, Micheal J. and Alshawabkeh, Akram and Gu, April Z. "Genotoxicity Assessment of Drinking Water Disinfection Byproducts by DNA Damage and Repair Pathway Profiling Analysis" Environmental Science & Technology , v.52 , 2018 10.1021/acs.est.7b06389 Citation Details
Zhang, Ye and Gu, April Z. and Cen, Tianyu and Li, Xiangyang and Li, Dan and Chen, Jianmin "Petrol and diesel exhaust particles accelerate the horizontal transfer of plasmid-mediated antimicrobial resistance genes" Environment International , v.114 , 2018 10.1016/j.envint.2018.02.038 Citation Details

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