The 23-year-old UC Davis Superfund Research and Training Program has received a $13.2 million, five-year competitive renewal grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

In 1986, University of California, Davis, scientists became the first researchers in the nation to receive Superfund Research Program funding. Since the project’s inception, they have brought more than $42 million in federal support to the campus from the institute.

Through the project, entitled Biomarkers of Exposure to Hazardous Substances, investigators use chromatographic, biosensor and cell-based technologies to determine the fate and transport of hazardous materials from toxic waste sites in groundwater, surface water and air. They also develop biomarkers of human and environmental exposure to these materials.

The program has carried out a broad range of activities, including removal of the toxic gasoline additive MTBE from groundwater and retraining 400 engineers at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, Calif., to do environmental engineering and cleanup activities, following the shipyard’s decommissioning as a nuclear submarine port.

The program also partnered with the UC Davis Graduate School of Management in supporting an annual summertime Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy, equipping researchers to commercialize their cutting-edge, sustainable and environmentally friendly discoveries.

“I am very proud of the impact that we have had,” says Bruce Hammock, director of the UC Davis Superfund Research Program and a professor of entomology. “The unique concept of NIEHS was to train a new generation of scientists working at the interface of a number of disciplines to address the serious problem of safe disposal and remediation of hazardous chemical wastes.”

“The Superfund Program represents one of the strengths of UC Davis in fostering interdisciplinary science to address serious problems facing California and the nation,” said Neal Van Alfen, dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at UC Davis. “The cutting-edge research being conducted in this program will have positive long-term and large-scale impacts for people, animals and the environment.”

The program draws investigators from UC Davis’ College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, College of Engineering, School of Medicine and School of Veterinary Medicine. Participating researchers also are located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the UC Davis Center for Health and the Environment.

More information about the UC Davis Superfund Research Program is available online at: http://www-sf.ucdavis.edu/.