Smithsonian’s Five Questions with Marine Biomedical Grad Student Alexis Temkin
– July 21, 2015
 (Click to enlarge) Lexi poses with a baby alligator during an alligator release trip. Other graduate students Lexi works with treat alligator eggs with mixtures of oil, Corexit, and other environmental contaminants to assess their effects on development. Lexi enjoys taking a break from the lab to help on release and egg collection trips. (Provided by: Lexi Temkin) |
Unhealthy lifestyle choices are a major contributor to obesity, but did you know that a component in dispersants used to treat oil spills and in many personal care products could increase fat cell production?
The Smithsonian Ocean Portal recently featured Alexis Temkin with the Medical University of South Carolina in their Women in Science series. Temkin’s Ph.D. work is contributing to the research project Using Embryonic Stem Cell Fate to Determine Potential Adverse Effects of Petroleum/Dispersant Exposure, funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative.
READ THE OCEAN PORTAL’S FIVE QUESTIONS WITH TEMKIN to learn about her research to understand oil and dispersant impacts on human fat cell development and gene expression.
For more information about Temkin, a GoMRI Scholar and the research she is involved with, read these articles:
- Grad Student Temkin Links Dispersant Component with Fat Cell Differentiation
- Can an Oil Spill Make Your Genes Fat?
- Research on Dispersants that Informs Oil Spill Response
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GoMRI and the Smithsonian have a partnership to enhance oil spill science content on the Ocean Portal website.
This research was made possible in part by a grant from BP/The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to the Coastal Waters Consortium (CWC). The GoMRI is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visit https://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.
© Copyright 2010- 2017 Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) – All Rights Reserved. Redistribution is encouraged with acknowledgement to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Please credit images and/or videos as done in each article. Questions? Contact web-content editor Nilde “Maggie” Dannreuther, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University (maggied@ngi.msstate.edu).
