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This past year, I was honored to receive an SOT Supplemental Training for Education Program (STEP) Award. I am currently a third-year PhD candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the lab of Dr. Ilona Jaspers (SOT member), where I am investigating the protective effects of vitamin D against ozone exposure. 

My current research has largely focused on describing the protective effects of vitamin D as seen through decreased inflammatory and transcriptional responses; however, it became increasingly clear that these effects were being mediated by biochemical mechanisms. Because of this, I believed it would be invaluable to receive training on techniques related to lipid chemistry and oxidation. I was fortunate to have previously worked with Dr. Ned Porter, a professor at Vanderbilt University, who is an expert in these areas. So, thanks to the STEP Award, I was able to receive hands-on training in his lab and advice on future directions for my project. 

For this training, I was able to spend a week working with Dr. Porter and Dr. Hye-Young Kim and brought samples related to my project for analysis. We decided to focus on two key analyses for my training, the first being the measurement of oxysterols, which are products of the ozonation of cholesterol and mediators of the pro-inflammatory responses caused by ozone, and second being the measurement of POPC-ozonides, which are products of the ozonation of an abundant membrane lipid, POPC. We decided on the analyses after hypothesizing how vitamin D was protecting against ozone, coming to the idea that vitamin D was acting as a decoy for ozone, leading to ozone preferentially reacting with vitamin D and preventing the formation of reactive oxysterols and ozonides. 

During this experience, I received hands-on training on all parts of the analysis, starting with learning how to perform lipid extractions from different cell culture samples, then how to perform mass spectrometric analyses, and finally how to analyze the resulting chromatograms and end up with usable concentration data. Surprisingly, at the end of this experience, we found that our hypothesis was correct. Vitamin D completely prevented the formation of a specific ozone-induced oxysterol. These results and training have opened up a completely new area of my project to explore and have given me an invaluable toolbox for future analyses using mass spectrometry. Given how ubiquitous lipid oxidation is as a mechanism of air pollution–induced toxicity, the skills learned during this experience will be essential for future analyses of biochemical mechanisms of various toxicants.  

My time with Drs. Porter and Kim was incredibly valuable, and I can’t thank them enough for imparting so much knowledge and skills in such a short amount of time (and for being so welcoming and showing me around Nashville). This would not have been possible without the financial support of the STEP Award, so I am incredibly grateful to SOT for this experience. 

The next STEP deadline is September 30, 2025, and graduate students who have passed their comprehensive exam for PhD candidacy and completed at least four semesters or six quarters of their program are eligible to apply.