SERC – Industry Project on Metal Bioavailability Research

The NSERC Strategic Grant project, with industrial co-funding from Rio Tinto Alcan and in kind support from Environment Canada, awarded to Dr. Chris Wood (McMaster University) and Dr. Jim McGeer (Wilfrid Laurier University) has officially started in September. The project is titled “Development of a Tissue Residue Approach for Risk Assessment of Metals in the Canadian Freshwater Environment. This project focuses on three important areas: (1) assessing the bioaccumulation patterns and toxic responses of three economically important but environmentally concerning metals (Cu, Cd, Ni) in two fish and five invertebrate species; (2) pin-pointing, at a subcellular level, the critical tissue metal residues that elicit toxicity; and (3) developing quantitative models to predict toxicity based on tissue residues.