Long-term exposure to triclosan, an antimicrobial commonly found in soaps, shampoos, toothpastes and many other household items, may potentially have serious health consequences, according to a team of University of California researchers, including Bruce Hammock, distinguished professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Their research, published Nov. 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that triclosan causes liver fibrosis and cancer in laboratory mice through molecular mechanisms that are also relevant in humans.
“Triclosan's increasing detection in environmental samples and its increasingly broad use in consumer products may overcome its moderate benefit and present a very real risk of liver toxicity for people, as it does in mice, particularly when combined with other compounds with similar action,” said Robert H. Tukey, professor in the departments of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Pharmacology, UC San Diego School of Medicine
Tukey led the study with Hammock, who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Research Center. They direct the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Superfund Programs at their respective campuses.
The team, including Mei-Fei Yueh, found that triclosan disrupted liver integrity and compromised liver function in mouse models. Mice exposed to triclosan for six months--roughly equivalent to 18 human years--were more susceptible to chemical-induced liver tumors. Their tumors were also larger and more frequent than in mice not exposed to triclosan.
The study suggests triclosan may do its damage by interfering with the constitutive androstane receptor, a protein responsible for detoxifying (clearing away) foreign chemicals in the body. To compensate for this stress, liver cells proliferate and turn fibrotic over time. Repeated triclosan exposure and continued liver fibrosis eventually promote tumor formation.
Triclosan is perhaps the most ubiquitous consumer antibacterial. Studies have found traces in 97 percent of breast milk samples from lactating women and in the urine of nearly 75 percent of people tested. Triclosan is also common in the environment: It is one of the seven most frequently detected compounds in streams across the United States.
“We could reduce most human and environmental exposures by eliminating uses of triclosan that are high volume, but of low benefit, such as inclusion in liquid hand soaps,” Hammock said. “Yet we could also for now retain uses shown to have health value — as in toothpaste, where the amount used is small.”
Triclosan is already under scrutiny by the FDA, due to its widespread use and recent reports that it can disrupt hormones and impair muscle contraction.
Co-authors include Koji Taniguchi, Shujuan Chen and Michael Karin, UC San Diego; and Ronald M. Evans, Salk Institute for Biological Studies. (See PNAS paper)
This research was funded, in part, by U.S. Public Health Service grants ES010337, GM086713, GM100481, A1043477, ES002710 and ES004699.
Author: Heather Buschman
UC San Diego Health Sciences
hbuschman@ucsd.edu
Phone: (619) 543-6163
(Editor's Note: Hammock was featured in the Sept. 4 edition of Newsweek in a piece titled "Is Cancer Lurking in Your Toothpaste? (And Your Soap? And Your Lipstick? Hammock called triclosan “quite a good antimicrobial” that belongs in the hospital, not on the kitchen counter, wrote reporter Alexander Nazaryan, who quoted Hammock as saying: “There's no reason for it to be there" (in hand and dish soaps).
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Carey, a distinguished professor of entomology with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is considered the world's foremost authority on arthropod demography. Page, provost of Arizona State University and emeritus professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, is considered the most influential honey bee biologist of the past 30 years.
UC Davis chemical ecologist Walter Leal, co-chair of the International Congress of Entomology (ICE 2016), announced the names of the eight plenary speakers at the Entomological Society of America meeting, underway Nov. 16-19 in Portland, Ore. The process was highly competitive, he said, with 77 nominations worldwide.
The ICE conference, set Sept. 25-30, 2016, may be the largest gathering of entomologists ever. Some 6000 are expected to attend. It will be co-located with the annual meetings of the Entomological Society of America and the Entomological Society of Canada, along with events hosted by the entomological societies of China, Brazil, Australia, and others.
“We are delighted to have the first Hispanic woman (Latina) to give a plenary lecture at ICE; likewise, the first kiwi (New Zealander), as well as the first native African to have the opportunity to highlight their work in this venue,” said Leal, professor in the UC Davis Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology.
The list of plenary speakers:
- Carolina Barilla-Mury, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Guatemala & USA, who will speak on medical entomology immunity
- Jacqueline Beggs, University of Auckland, New Zealand. Topic: biodiversity and biosecurity
- James R. Carey, University of California, Davis. Topic: insect biodemography
- Fred Gould, North Carolina State University. Topic: GMOs: crop and health protection
- Robert E. Page, Jr., Arizona State University. Topic: bee biology: Spirit of the Hive” (title of his latest book)
- José Roberto Postali Parra, ESALQ, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Topic: biological control.
- John A. Pickett, Rothamsted Research, UK. Topic: insect-plant interactions
- Baldwyn Torto, Centre of Insect Physiology & Ecology, based in Nairobi, Kenya. Topic: Colony collapse disorder and pollination.
Capsule information on the UC Davis-affiliated entomologists:
Carey has authored more than 250 scientific articles, including landmark papers in Science that shaped the way scientists think about lifespan limits and actuarial aging, and two articles in the Annual Review series that provide new syntheses on insect biodemography (2003, Annual Review of Entomology) and aging in the wild (2014, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics). He directed a $10 million multi-university grant for more than a decade (2003-2013).
Carey is the author of three books, including Applied Demography for Biologists with Special Emphasis on Insects (Oxford University Press), the go-to source for all entomologists studying demography. Highly honored for his work, Carey received the 2014 C. W. Woodworth Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America (ESA), and the 2014 UC Davis Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award for innovative and creative teaching.
Carey chaired the University of California Systemwide Committee on Research Policy—one of the most important and prestigious committees in the UC system and served on the systemwide UC Academic Council. In addition, he serves as the associate editor of three journals: Genus, Aging Cell, and Demographic Research. In addition, he is the first entomologist to have a mathematical discovery named after him by demographers—The Carey Equality—which set the theoretical and analytical foundation for a new approach to understanding wild populations.
He is a fellow of four professional organizations: ESA, the Gerontological Society of America, the California Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Carey has presented more than 250 seminars in venues all over the world, from Stanford, Harvard, Moscow, Beijing to Athens, London, Adelaide and Okinawa. In addition, Carey is considered a worldwide authority on the demography and invasion biology of tephritid fruit flies, particularly the Mediterranean fruit fly; and a preeminent authority on biodemographics of human aging and lifespan. He is also a pioneering force advocating the educational use of digital video technology, work that he is sharing throughout much of the state, nation and the world.
Carey received his bachelor's degree (animal ecology, 1973) and master's degree (entomology, 1975) from Iowa State University, and his doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley in 1980.
Page, who received his doctorate in entomology at UC Davis in 1980, served as an assistant professor at Ohio State University before joining the UC Davis Department of Entomology in 1989. He chaired the department for five years, from 1999 to 2004. Page's specialized genetic stock of honey bees was based for many years at UC Davis.
Page has published more than 200 reviewed publications, three edited books and two authored books. His lab pioneered the use of modern techniques to study the genetic bases to the evolution of social behavior in honey bees and other social insects.
Page was the first to employ molecular markers to study polyandry and patterns of sperm use in honey bees. He provided the first quantitative demonstration of low genetic relatedness in a highly eusocial species.
Among his other achievements involving honey bee research:
- Page and his students and colleagues isolated, characterized and validated the complementary sex determination gene of the honey bee; perhaps the most important paper yet published about the genetics of Hymenoptera.
- He and his students constructed the first genetic map of any social insect, demonstrating that the honey bee has the highest recombination rate of any eukaryotic organism mapped to date.
In addition, Page was personally involved in genome mappings of bumble bees, parasitic wasps and two species of ants. His most recent work focuses on the genetic bases to individuality in honey bees.
Page also built two modern apicultural labs (in Ohio and Arizona), major legacies that are centers of honey bee research and training. He has trained many hundreds of beekeepers, and continues to teach beekeeping even as provost of the largest public university in the United States. He is also the Foundation Chair of Life Sciences.
An internationally recognized scholar, Page is an elected foreign member of the Brazilian Academy of Science, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the oldest scientific academy of science, the Germany Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. He was elected to Leopoldina, founded in 1652, for his pioneering research in behavioral genetics of honey bees.
Previously announced as keynote speakers: Nobel Laureautes Peter Agre (2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry) and Jules Hoffmann (2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine). Agre is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health. Hoffmann is a professor of integrative biology at the Strasbourg University Institute for Advanced Study. He is also emeritus research director of the French National Research Center and a past president of the French National Academy of Sciences.
The ICE conference, themed "Entomology without Borders," is co-chaired by Alvin Simmons research entomologist with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Vegetable Laboratory in Charleston, S.C. More information on the conference is on its website at http://ice2016orlando.org/
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
DAVIS--A team of five graduate students from the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology will compete Tuesday, Nov. 18 in the Entomological Society of America's student debates at the 62nd annual meeting in Portland, Ore. Their topic: neonicotinoids.
The team, captained by Mohammad-Amir Aghaee of the Larry Godfrey lab, includes Jenny Carlson, Anthony Cornel lab; Margaret "Rei" Scampavia, Neal Williams/Edwin Lewis lab; Ralph Washington Jr., Steve Nadler lab; and Daniel Klittich, Michael Parrella lab.
Parrella, professor and chair of the department, serves as their advisor and coach.
UC Davis, which won the overall championship last year, will debate the Auburn (Alabama) University team, comprised of Olufemi Ajayi, Adekunle Adesanya, Julian Golec, Matt Burrows, Scott Clem, and alternate Zi Ye. Associate professor David Held advises the team.
Auburn will present information that neonicotinoids are causing the death of bees essential for pollinating our food crops, and that the use of neonicotinoids should end. UC Davis is the con team and will present evidence to the contrary.
The theme of the Entomology 2014 Debates is “Management Strategies: Solutions to Grand Challenges.”
In addition to neonics, other team topics are:
- The calls for the end of invasion biology are justified; this field should be replaced by the ecology of species redistribution. Washington State University vs. Louisiana State University.
- What is the single best tool to reduce malaria cases throughout the world? Florida A&M University vs. Kansas State University
The captain, Mohammad-Amir Aghaee, is heavily involved in ESA. He has been part of the debate and Linnean Games teams for four years. “Our debate team record has been 2-1 since 2011 and in 2013 we won 1st place for best team,” he said. He has participated in the student 10-minute paper competitions for four years, covering such topics as Lygus bug movements in bush beans, efficacy of Bacillus thuringiensis spp. galleriae against rice water weevil, and preliminary research on winter flooding effectiveness against rice water weevil. He won first place for his winter flood presentation in 2013.
Aghaee is a fifth year Ph.D. candidate working on rice water weevil (Lissorhoptrus oryzophilus) management in California rice. The majority of his dissertation research is dedicated toward developing alternative management options for growers. “I have examined the use of Bacillus thuringiensis spp. galleriae as a biopesticide for rice water weevil and explored the mechanisms of winter flooding rice fields as a cultural control against weevil larvae. I am currently examining the possible role of silicon augmentation as a means of increasing rice tolerance to weevil damage and the potential threat of Brown marmorated stinkbug (Halyomorpha halys) to California rice.
He has secondary interests in post-Renaissance European history and contemporary Middle Eastern politics. He explores some of these themes in his freshman seminar titled "Bugs, Germs, and Steel: A History of Entomology in Warfare" where he and his colleagues teach students how basic scientific research and ecology has influenced human conflicts and technological progress. Outside of entomology, his leisure activities include oil painting, language acquisition, and culinary specialization in Persian and Indo-Pakistani cuisines.
ESA president Frank Zalom, UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, will preside over the 62nd annual meeting of the ESA, which meets Nov 16-19 in the Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Ore.
More than than 3,200 insect scientists have already registered, according to the ESA's communications program manager, Richard Levine. It is expected to be one of the largest entomology meetings in recent memory.
"The Northwest, with its natural beauty and location at the edge of the Pacific rim, is an ideal place to reflect on our Entomology 2014 theme: Grand Challenges Beyond Our Horizons," said Zalom, in an ESA news release "This year, ESA will be launching an effort to identify the most important challenges to which our discipline can make significant contributions.
More than 90 symposia are planned and will cover such topics as bed bugs, honey bees, monarch butterflies, ticks, native pollinators, pesticide regulations, biological control, integrated pest management, genetically-modified crops, invasive species, forestry, entomophagy, organic farming, insect-vectored diseases, and more. In addition, there will be 1,750 papers and posters, Levine reports.
Professor Diane Ullman will receive ESA's distinguished achievement award in teaching. This is the highest honor that the 7000-member ESA presents to its outstanding teachers.
Ullman earlier was named the recipient of the outstanding teaching award from the Pacific Branch of ESA. Ullman chaired the UC Davis Department of Entomology in 2004-2005, and served as an associate dean for undergraduate academic programs, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. from 2005 to 2014. (See more information.)
Kelly Hamby, recipient of the John Henry Comstock Graduate Student Award from the Pacific Branch of ESA, will be honored, along with the other Comstock award winners from the other branches. (See more information)
Research entomologist James F. Campbell, who earned his doctoral in entomology from UC Davis in 1999, will receive a special recognition award. The award, sponsored by Syngenta Crop Protection, recognizes entomologists who are making significant contributions to agriculture. Campbell is a research entomologist with the Center for Grain and Animal Health Research Service of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service, Manhattan, Kansas. (See more information)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Butterflies and moths can't fly if you rub the scales off their wings, right?
Earwigs crawl into your ears and then into your brain, right?
Wrong. Those are some of the myths surrounding insects and ones that the UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology will dispel at its open house from 1 to 4 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 23, in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge building, Crocker Lane.
The Bohart also will dispel myths about spiders (arachnids), including
- Brown recluse spiders are found in California
- Daddy long-leg spiders are very venomous, but their mouths are too small to bite us.
- We swallow/eat a significant amount of spiders/insects in our sleep.
The open house, free and open to the public, is the second in a series of nine open houses during the 2014-2015 academic year.
The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, houses a global collection of nearly eight million specimens. It is also the home of the seventh largest insect collection in North America, and the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity. Noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007) founded the museum.
Special attractions include a “live” petting zoo, featuring Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas. Visitors are invited to hold the insects and photograph them. Facepainting will be among the family-oriented activities.
The museum's gift shop (on location and online) includes T-shirts, sweatshirts, books, jewelry, posters, insect-collecting equipment and insect-themed candy.
The Bohart Museum's regular hours are from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. The insect museum is closed to the public on Fridays and on major holidays. Admission is free. Open houses, focusing on specific themes, are held on weekends throughout the academic year.
The remaining schedule of open houses:
- Saturday, Dec. 20: “Insects and Art,” 1 to 4 p.m.
- Sunday, Jan. 11: “Parasitoid Palooza,” 1 to 4 p.m.
- Sunday, Feb. 8: “Biodiversity Museum Day,” noon to 4 p.m.
- Saturday, March 14: “Pollination Nation,” 1 to 4 p.m.
- Saturday, April 18: UC Davis Picnic Day, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Sunday, May 17: “Name That Bug! How About Bob?” 1 to 4 p.m.
- Saturday, July 18: “Moth Night,” 8 to 11 p.m.
More information is available by contacting (530) 752-0493 or Tabatha Yang, education and public outreach coordinator at tabyang@ucdavis.edu
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology has plenty of insect-themed gifts.
The Bohart Museum of Entomology, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, operates a year-around gift shop, filled with T-shirts, jewelry, posters, books, bug-collecting equipment and insect-themed candy, including chocolate-dipped scorpions, crunchy crickets, and protein-rich lollipops.
Two of the latest books available in the gift shop are Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University Press) and California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday), co-authored by native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis. Thorp is an associate at the Bohart Museum and maintains an office in the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility.
The book, geared for kindergarten through sixth-grade classrooms, and also a favorite of adults, tells the untold story of the California dogface butterfly (Zerene eurydice), and how a classroom successfully mounted a campaign to name it the California state insect. Illustrations by artist Laine Bauer, a UC Davis graduate, and photographs by naturalist Greg Kareofelas, a Bohart Museum volunteer, depict the life cycle of this butterfly and show the host plant, false indigo (Amorpha californica). Net proceeds from the sale of this book are earmarked for the education, outreach and research programs at the Bohart Museum.
Gift shop items are available both in the store (Monday through Thursday) and online, http://www.bohartmuseum.com/.
Among the favorites gifts at the Bohart Museum:
- T-shirts depicting images of dragonflies, butterflies, beetles and moths
- Bohart Museum coffee mug
- Insect collecting net
- Posters of butterflies of Central Californian, Dragonflies of California, and the California Dogface butterfly
- Butterfly habitat
- Jewelry depicting bees, butterflies, dragonflies and ladybugs (many of the boxes are engraved with the Bohart logo and treasured)
- Science kits
- Insect and spider books
- Insect magnets
The Entomology Graduate Student Association (EGSA) offers t-shirts to fund its educational activities. The newest t-shirt, design by grad student Danny Klittich, who studies with major professor Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, is of a honey bee exiting a honeycomb.
Other popular EGSA shirts depict a dung beetle, “They See Me Rollin'”; a “cuddling moth” for infants and toddlers; a weevil shirt, “See No Weevil, Hear No Weevil, Speak No Weevil”; and “The Beetles” shirt, of four beetles crossing Abbey Road, reminiscent of The Beatles pictured on their Abbey Road album. The shirts can be ordered from Margaret “Rei” Scampavia at mrscampavia@ucdavis.edu.
Another bug gift: the pollinator notecards being sold by the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, directed by Amina Harris. The photos of insects, including bees and butterflies, were donated by communication specialist Kathy Keatley Garvey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, who captured most of the images in her bee garden The notecards are available from the Center office (in the Robert Mondavi Insitute for Wine and Food Science on Old Davis Road) and at the UC Davis Bookstore, among other places.
