# Developmental Core

> **NIH NIH U2C** · WADSWORTH CENTER · 2021 · $340,619

## Abstract

ABSTRACT – DEVELOPMENTAL CORE
The overall goal of the Wadsworth Center’s Human Health Exposure Analysis Resource (WC-HHEAR)
Developmental Core (Dev. Core) is to capitalize on the existing resources, expertise, and capacity at
Wadsworth to develop and validate novel methods and analytical approaches for quantitative
measurements of emerging chemicals in biospecimens, i.e., pushing the boundaries of human
biomonitoring. Drs. Kannan and Parsons, the MPIs on this proposal, are leaders in their respective fields
with more than 700 combined publications. They have spent the last two decades building the human
biomonitoring program at Wadsworth – in Dr. Parsons’ Trace Elements Laboratory (TREL) and in Dr.
Kannan’s Human Organics Biomonitoring Lab (HOBL). These efforts include assembling the current
analytical capability; discovering emerging chemicals in human tissues and fluids; developing and
validating new methods of analysis; and supporting the advancement of human health studies and the
environment. Both HOBL and TREL have expansive lists of assays and capabilities that are part of the
repertoire committed to support the WC-HHEAR targeted analysis resource (TAR). One of the Dev.
Core’s functions will be to improve existing methods, requiring less sample volume for analysis, doing
more with a limited amount of sample, improving detection limits, increasing sample throughput, reducing
costs, and leveraging state-of-the-art technologies as they become available. For example, the proposed
Dev. Core will investigate extractions that can be implemented for use on multiple classes of organic
chemicals and improving detectability for trace elements using a new generation of technology based on
inorganic tandem mass spectrometry. New capabilities will be developed in the Dev. Core and validated
according to the international standards for single-laboratory method validation. The Dev. Core will build
on its existing expertise with non-traditional matrices to offer more targets in more matrix types and will
respond to HHEAR – driven by either discoveries in the untargeted resource, increased demand from
HHEAR clients, or suggestions from the HHEAR program office. The transfer of these improvements to
current methods will be facilitated by the WC-HHEAR administrative core, where key staff are integrated
into both the TAR and Dev. Core. It is only through the progress outlined above that high-quality,
quantitative, exposome research can flourish.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10222674
- **Project number:** 5U2CES026542-04
- **Recipient organization:** WADSWORTH CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Kurunthachalam Kannan
- **Activity code:** U2C (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $340,619
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2015-09-30 → 2025-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10222674

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10222674, Developmental Core (5U2CES026542-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10222674. Licensed CC0.

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