# Quantifying Heavy Metals in Interstitial Fluid for Remote Monitoring of Chronic Exposures

> **NIH NIH R03** · UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO HEALTH SCIS CTR · 2020 · $75,750

## Abstract

Quantifying Heavy Metals in Interstitial Fluid for Remote Monitoring of Chronic Exposures
SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Chronic exposure to heavy metals (HM) is associated with many detrimental health effects. HM
contamination in soil and water costs trillions of dollars annually to the U.S. and global economies in
remediation and health costs. HM contamination particularly relevant to human health in the Western
U.S. includes uranium (U), cadmium (Cd), vanadium (V), and arsenic (As). Toxicity can be attributed to
individual HMs, however exposure to multiple HMs is suspected to have additive or synergistic harmful
health effects. While several studies have described the surface water and sediment content of these
toxic metals, determining biological loads remains challenging due to the need to collect blood or urine
samples from a dispersed rural population over time.
Recent advances in interstitial fluid (ISF) extraction and analysis suggest a minimally-invasive method
that can be adapted to monitor HM exposure and biological loads longitudinally in both localized and
dispersed communities. ISF can be collected with microneedle arrays (MA) and is a rich source of
disease and exposure biomarkers.
We ultimately envision a wearable microneedle patch that could be mailed to individuals or distributed
through community centers. These patches would be worn for a few hours and then returned to a
central laboratory to measure ISF HM levels. The central hypothesis of this project is that MA extraction
of ISF will enable minimally-invasive quantitation of HM exposure, which will be a highly stable metric
for exposure assessment.
The Aims of the current project are to 1) Establish analytical parameters for ICP-MS analysis of HMs in
MA-extracted ISF, 2) Quantify the baseline HM content of ISF vs blood and urine in unexposed
populations, and 3) Characterize a mixed HM exposure model by defining the relationship between HM
concentrations in ISF, blood, and urine over time.
This work directly aligns with the NIEHS Mission “to discover how the environment affects people in
order to promote healthier lives” by developing minimally-invasive, longitudinal biomonitoring methods.
This highly translational project advances the basic understanding of HM biodistribution while
developing a monitoring platform that can provide actionable data to enhance preventive health and
remediation efforts.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9954455
- **Project number:** 1R03ES031724-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO HEALTH SCIS CTR
- **Principal Investigator:** Justin Thomas Baca
- **Activity code:** R03 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $75,750
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-09-23 → 2022-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9954455

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9954455, Quantifying Heavy Metals in Interstitial Fluid for Remote Monitoring of Chronic Exposures (1R03ES031724-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9954455. Licensed CC0.

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