Discipline: Ecology Environmental and Earth Sciences
Subcategory: Geosciences and Earth Sciences
Session: 2
Room: Park Tower 8206
Dayana A. Abdullah-Smoot - Texas Southern University
Houston, also known as the ‘Bayou City’, has a complex network of waterways surrounding and interweaving throughout the city. They work as a storm water runoff system to help prevent flooding, but many communities use the watersheds for recreational purposes. Local communities boat, fish and swim in the bayous, unaware of the chemicals and pollutants lurking in the water. Current studies in our lab show that there are high concentrations of Arsenic, Mercury, Chromium, Lead and Zinc in the water. We believe that the metals and chemicals compound identified could cause the water to be deleterious effects on living organisms occupying the watersheds or using its resources. Water samples have been collected in triplicates from 5 major bayous including Greens Bayou, White Oak Bayou, Halls Bayou, Hunting Bayou, and Buffalo Bayou. The water samples were also collected in the summer and fall of 2017, but what makes this sampling time significant is that the samples were collected before and after Hurricane Harvey.The methods include turning the water sample to a PBS solution that will not be detrimental to the cells, then serial dilute the samples in media for varying concentrations (control or 0%, 12%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%) and test the concentration on the transformed colon cells using cell viability and proliferation assays for 0 – 48-hour time points. Aims include determining the difference between the summer and fall samples as well as the bayou with the greatest cytotoxic effect. We expect to see a liner decrease in live cells as the concentration of bayou water sample increases. Future studies include identifying the cell death pathways being activated after being subjected to the watershed samples.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): Funding was provided by NSF/RISE grant to S. Shishodia
Faculty Advisor: Shishir Shishodia, PhD, dayanasmoot@yahoo.com
Role: I have done everything with this research. I collected and prepared samples, created the the dilutions, ran both experiments and analyzed the data.