In the News...

A Royal Society of Chemistry Journal Features Wadsworth Study on Cover

The cover of the March 2008 issue of the Royal Society of Chemistry´s Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry features the work of a team of Wadsworth Center scientists led by Dr. Patrick Parsons.

The featured paper describes the characterization of four new bone reference materials that were produced to support the accuracy of measurements for lead in bone. The featured image on the journal cover shows a rather distorted view of the Periodic Table, in which lead (symbol Pb) is the primary focal point.

Lead is still a major environmental pollutant that affects young children for the most part. Lead accumulates in bones, where it resides for decades before being released back into the blood. These unique bone reference materials were produced from caprine and bovine sources that were obtained from animals dosed with lead for the New York State Proficiency Testing program for blood lead.

These New York State bone lead reference materials were circulated to more than 30 laboratories worldwide in an intercomparison study, and later certified for lead content at Wadsworth using isotope dilution inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, a primary measurement method.

The materials will be used to standardize bone lead measurements by both in vitro and in vivo methods. In vivo methods based on X-Ray Fluorescence methods are particularly important for epidemiological studies of the effects of long-term exposure to lead.

Additional authors from Wadsworth Center and the School of Public Health are David Bellis and Katherine Hetter.