Toxicoepigenetics

Dr. McCullough’s lab focuses around the role of the epigenome as both a molecular mechanism mediating the effects of toxic exposures and as a biomarker for predicting susceptible populations and identifying factors that can be used to mitigate adverse exposure outcomes. The lab employs a translational research approach to toxicology that uses both advanced in vitro primary cell models and in vivo clinical controlled human exposure studies. Dr. McCullough completed his postdoctoral training at the US EPA where he identified novel pathways of single and multi-toxicant mediated stress, for which he received the Molecular and Systems Biology Specialty Section Postdoctoral Fellow Award, the US EPA Superior Achievement Award, and the Gabriel L. Plaa Education Award. Dr. McCullough’s research is focused on investigating the role of the epigenome as a mediator of inter-individual variability in toxicant-induced health effects and susceptibility using in vitro and human exposure models. Dr. McCullough is the Chairman of the US EPA’s National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory Epigenetics Workgroup, a founding member of the University of North Carolina’s Program in Chromatin and Epigenetics, and is on the Board of Directors for the American Society for Cellular and Computational Toxicology. Dr. Dolinoy is Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health (UM SPH) and leads the Environmental Epigenetics and Nutrition Laboratory at UM SPH, which investigates how nutritional and environmental factors interact with epigenetic gene regulation to shape health and disease. Dr. Dolinoy holds a BA in environmental sciences and policy and Spanish from Duke University, an MSc in environmental sciences and engineering from the Harvard School of Public Health, and a PhD in Genetics and Genomics and Integrated Toxicology from Duke University. She serves on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry as well as Epigenetics, Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis, and Toxicological Sciences, and is an active member of the Society of Toxicology (SOT), the Environmental Mutagen and Genomics Society (EMGS), and the American Society for Nutrition (ASN), and will serve as Chair of the 2015 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) in Molecular & Cellular Mechanisms of Toxicity. In 2011, Dr. Dolinoy received the Norman Kretchmer Memorial Award from ASN and the Classic Paper of the Year Award from Environmental Health Perspectives for Dolinoy et al. "Maternal genistein alters coat color and protects Avy mouse offspring from obesity by modifying the fetal epigenome." In 2012, she was the recipient of the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH)/Pfizer Research Award for the article, "An Expression Microarray Approach for the Identification of Metastable Epialleles in the Mouse Genome." This work was cited as a model approach that may allow for directly assessing the role of early nutritional and environmental exposures in human adult disease. Dr. Dolinoy is an Associate Editor on the upcoming second edition of Elsevier’s MRW Comprehensive Toxicology.

1. The Role of Histone Acetylation and Acetyltransferases in Gene Regulation 2. The Role of Histone Methylation and Methyltransferases in Gene Regulation 3. Linking Chromatin Accessibility with Exposure Effects and Susceptibility 4. Implications for Chromatin Biology in Toxicology 5. The Role of DNA Methylation in Gene Regulation 6. Implications of DNA Methylation in Toxicology 7. DNA Methylation as a Biomarker in Environmental Epidemiology 8. DNA Hydroxymethylation: Implications for Toxicology and Epigenetic Epidemiology 9. The Role of Non-Coding RNAs in Gene Regulation 10. miRNAs and lncRNAs as Biomarkers of Toxicant Exposure 11. Germline and Trans-generational Impacts of Toxicant Exposures 12. Novel Bioinformatics Methods for Toxicoepigenetics 13. Incorporating Epigenetics into Risk Assessment Frameworks 14. Chromatin Immunoprecipitation: General Protocol and Considerations for Analysis 15. Methods for Analysis of DNA Methylation 16. Methods for Analyzing miRNA Expression