This webinar entitled “Chemical Exposures to DNA Damaging Agents, Biological Responses, and Impact on Health” is sponsored by Toxics, an open-access, internationally peer-reviewed journal from MDPI. It was held on Thursday 24 September 2020 and was chaired by Prof. Dr. Robert J. Turesky from University of Minnesota. The journal Toxics publishes research on a wide range of hazardous substances and materials from exposure assessment to mechanisms of toxicity.

Chemical exposures through lifestyle choices, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, diets, and some occupational exposures, are risk factors for developing diseases, including cancer. Environmental and dietary genotoxicants, endogenous electrophiles, and ionizing radiation agents damage the human genome to form DNA adducts. Biomonitoring DNA damage in humans is critical to understand the chemicals involved in mutagenesis and cancer risk. DNA adducts serve as dosimeters for chemical exposure and represent a measure of the biologically effective dose. DNA-adducts also serve as biomarkers to aid in risk assessment and formulating public health policy, exposure reduction, and cancer prevention.

Details of experts: Prof. Dr. Robert Turesky holds the Masonic Chair in Cancer Causation and a Professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry. His research is devoted to cancer etiology programs at the University of Minnesota. Prof. Turesky received his PhD in nutrition and food science from M.I.T. Prior to his current position, Prof. Turesky served as Group Leader of the Biomarkers Unit, Nestlé Research Center, Lausanne, Switzerland (1986 – 2000); Division Director of Chemistry, National Center for Toxicological Research, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Jefferson, AR, (2000 – 2004); and Principal Investigator, Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health (2004 – 2013). He investigates the biochemical toxicology of dietary and environmental genotoxicants and applies mass spectrometry methods to identify and measure biomarkers of these chemicals in molecular epidemiology studies that seek to understand the role of chemical exposures in the etiology of cancer.

Dr. Jingshu Guo obtained her doctorate in Chemistry at the University of Toledo. Being trained as a mass spectrometrist, her research focused on developing and analyzing biomolecules by Mass Spectrometry (MS)-based technologies. She joined the Turesky laboratory as a postdoctoral researcher in 2013 and became a Research Assistant Professor in 2018. Over the years, she has developed highly sensitive and selective high-resolution MS methods to biomonitor environmental carcinogens and their DNA adducts in human specimens at ultra-trace levels. Currently, she is establishing both data-dependent and data-independent mass spectrometry acquisition methods for DNA adductomic analyses, which allows simultaneous screening of many DNA adducts in the human genome. She is also involved in metabolomic and exposomic projects related to etiological factors in cancer risk using the advanced MS methodologies.

Dr. Yinsheng Wang received his Ph. D. degree from Washington University in St. Louis, after obtaining his BS and MS degrees from Shandong University and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, respectively. Yinsheng’s current research involves the use of mass spectrometry, along with synthetic organic chemistry and molecular biology, for investigation about the occurrence and biological consequences of DNA damage as well as for the identification and functional characterizations of nucleic acid- and nucleotide-binding proteins. Yinsheng has trained, or is in the process of training of, over 70 Ph. D. students and post-doctoral fellows, and he has co-authored ~ 300 research articles. Yinsheng was named as a fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences in 2012, and he was the recipient for the inaugural Chemical Research in Toxicology Young Investigator Award from the Division of Chemical Toxicology of the American Chemical Society (2012), the 2013 Biemann Medal from the American Society for Mass Spectrometry and the 2018 EAS Award for Outstanding Achievements in Mass Spectrometry.

Dr. David Phillips is a Professor of Environmental Carcinogenesis at King’s College London. Prior to joining King’s in 2011 he was for many years at the Institute of Cancer Research, after post-doctoral fellowships in the USA (Univ. Wisconsin and Stanford Univ.). His research interests are in environmental causes of cancer and in mechanisms of carcinogenesis, in particular the formation and biological consequences of DNA adducts. Current research is focused on the mutational signatures formed in vitro by environmental carcinogens and on relating these to mutational patterns found in human tumours. He is Past President of the UK Environmental Mutagen Society, was formerly Chair of the UK government advisory Committee on Carcinogenicity and previously editor-in-chief of the journal Mutagenesis.