Postdoctoral Fellowship: SPRF: Structural Determinants of Exposure and the Gut Microbiome

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research.

NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields.

Under the sponsorship of Drs. Elizabeth Mallott and Theresa Gildner at Washington University in St. Louis, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist studying the relationship between pesticide exposure, social factors, and human biology during childhood.

Some pesticides contain chemicals that can disrupt the endocrine system and influence metabolic function. When this disruption occurs during key periods of development, such as childhood, it may have both short- and long-term effects on human biology and health. Furthermore, not all individuals are equally exposed.

The results from this project will inform our understanding of the interaction between individual, household, community, and societal factors as they relate to pesticide exposures. This project will also improve our understanding of how pesticide exposure may be related to metabolic function and the gut microbiome during childhood. In doing so, it will expand our knowledge of the biological pathways that underlie socioenvironmental interactions in low-resource communities of the United States.

This NSF postdoctoral fellowship will test the hypothesis that pesticide exposure influences childhood metabolic development, including the prediction that the gut microbiome affects the relationship between pesticide exposure and thyroid function. The project will answer the following questions: 1) Is greater pesticide exposure over time associated with body composition, changes in thyroid hormone levels during adolescence, and changes in the gut microbiome? 2) Do structural factors in the environment, including sewage and drinking water infrastructure, contribute to differences in environmental exposures and metabolic development? 3) What other environmental exposures in rural Mississippi influence health beyond pesticides, such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)?

To test this hypothesis, we will measure childhood pesticide exposure, thyroid hormone levels, body composition, and microbiome composition. By investigating environmental exposures across varying scales of analysis and identifying new biological pathways by which these exposures affect child growth and development, this project will deepen our understanding of the effects of pesticides during childhood.

Together, these findings will advance research on the social and biological influences on childhood development in the United States.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.