Texas A&M receives over $1 million in USDA grants to study SARS-CoV-2 in deer

Grant and Award Announcement

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

FRANCISCO FERREIRA, ASSISTANT RESEARCH SCIENTIST IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENTOMOLOGY, AND SARAH HAMER, PROFESSOR OF EPIDEMIOLOGY AT VMBS, COLLECT AN ORAL SWAB FOR SARS-COV-2 TESTING FROM AN IMMOBILIZED DEER THAT IS PART OF A CAPTIVE HERD IN SEPTEMBER 2023.

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CREDIT: SARAH HAMER/TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF VETERINARY MEDICINE AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES

Texas A&M University scientists and research partners have received two National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) grants to study the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in deer. These funds will help researchers understand the impact of the virus in Texas’ deer populations and its relationship to human and ecological health.

For these projects, the research team will focus on captive deer, which are an agricultural species in Texas, including managed deer that live on large, rural properties enclosed by fences, as well as on the wild deer with which captive deer may interact and deer living in zoos and wildlife centers. 

Understanding The Ecology Of Disease

The first $800,000 USDA grant will fund a multifaceted three-year project designed to help scientists understand how the virus that causes COVID-19 spreads among deer and, for the first time, how the SARS-CoV-2 virus has impacted overall deer health.

What makes the study unique is its focus on understanding disease in the context of whole ecological systems, examining not only how captive deer interact with each other, but also how the diverse wild and captive animal community may interact with the deer. For example, the study will investigate patterns of infection among captive deer, the humans who work with the deer, other domestic livestock on the ranches, as well as wild mammals in the environment.

To do this, researchers at Texas A&M will collaborate with the Deer Research Program at the Texas A&M University-Kingsville’s (TAMUK) Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute, which will help collect the large number of samples needed for the project.

“The first aim of the project is a screening study (testing the deer for SARS-CoV-2) of 30 ranches, farms, or other managed areas with deer across the state, such as safari-style parks and zoos,” said Dr. Sarah Hamer, professor of epidemiology at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) and lead researcher for Texas A&M on both projects. “This stage will allow us to see where there has been deer exposure to the virus in the past and where there are active infections.”

The second stage of the project will focus on locations where coronavirus infections are found in deer.

“If we find infected deer, we will then transition to a phase of the study where we can not only re-sample the deer over time to monitor changes in their infection and health, but also sample other farm animals and native wildlife on each property. We will also sample the people on each ranch who regularly interact with the deer,” Hamer explained. “These will most likely be the workers who are responsible for putting out the feed and water for the animals.”

This broader range of samples will help Hamer and the rest of the team learn more about the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus between animals and people that share an ecological relationship. Their approach to consider humans, animals, and the environment was proposed after Hamer’s teams spent more than two years studying the virus among people and their pet dogs and cats in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded research; that research showed that infections were not uncommon among domestic animals that live in houses with active human cases.

The laboratory analyses for the deer project will be overseen by Dr. Gabriel Hamer, professor in the Texas A&M Department of Entomology. 

“Once we detect positive samples for SARS-CoV-2, we will work with partners to sequence the viral genomes across all of the infected species and see how they compare,” he said. “We want to see if we can infer which direction the infection is spreading among deer, other animals, and humans.”

The final part of the three-year project will analyze how overall deer health has been impacted by the virus. 

“Of all four goals, this one is probably the most important for the deer producers,” said Dr. Walt Cook, a clinical associate professor in the VMBS’ Department of Veterinary Pathobiology and co-investigator on the project. “We want to know if SARS-CoV-2 might affect things like body condition, antler growth, and reproduction.” 

The robust captive cervid industry in Texas makes this an ideal state for better understanding how and when the virus infects deer. In comparison to tracking wild deer, the opportunity to study deer belonging to managed herds will allow researchers to answer many of the unknown questions about SARS-CoV-2 and deer health. 

“Most of the existing studies on wild deer rely on hunter-harvested samples,” Sarah Hamer said. “A deer may test positive for a SARS-CoV-2 infection, but at that point, the body has been processed and we can’t know its symptoms or if the virus impacted the deer’s health or fitness in any way.”

“We’re extremely appreciative that producers across the state are allowing us to study their herds so that we can better understand how SARS-CoV-2 is maintained in nature,” Cook said. “We have the opportunity to study the ecology of the disease in real settings across the state to learn about what these animals may be exposed to, while maintaining anonymity (with no information regarding specific test results, locations of properties, or premise ownership being released publicly or to any agency), to benefit us all in the future.”

Because of the project’s unique scope and complexity, the researchers hope to answer questions relating SARS-CoV-2 to many different aspects of human, animal, and environmental health.

“For the last three years, zoonotic disease has brought the world to a halt and impacted virtually every aspect of life on earth,” said Dr. Michael Cherry, a white-tailed deer expert at TAMUK and partner on the projects. “Understanding the ecology of these diseases and how they affect human health, food security, and important sectors of the economy will make us better prepared for future zoonotic outbreaks.”

“The diverse team is one of the unique aspects of this ambitious project,” Cherry said. “Dr. Hamer has pulled together a fantastic team, and I’m happy to be able to contribute.”

Gabe Hamer (front right), professor Department of Entomology, and Logan Thomas (back), postdoctoral researcher in Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, collect an oral swab from a fawn for SARS-CoV-2 testing.

Mike Cherry, Texas A&M-Kingsville, demonstrates how to conduct an ultrasound of the rump fat as a measure of deer body condition while veterinarian and Ph.D. student from Texas A&M-Kingsville Joe Hediger explains the process. The research team plans to determine if there are any measurable differences in fitness between SARS-CoV-2 infected and uninfected captive deer.

CREDIT

Sarah Hamer/Texas A&M University School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

Protecting Against Future Outbreaks

The second project, funded by a $650,000 USDA grant and spearheaded by biotech company Ginkgo Bioworks, will include sequencing the RNA of SARS-CoV-2 found in white-tailed deer to better understand which strains are active in deer populations and to track possible mutations so that we can better protect ourselves from future outbreaks of the virus in the human population. 

“Zoonotic research like this is key to helping make informed decisions and avoid future outbreaks,” said Matt McKnight, general manager of biosecurity at Ginkgo Bioworks. “This data and research will provide governments, industry leaders, and academics the information they need to optimize behaviors and provide early warnings to prevent disease spillover.”

The first part of the project entails sampling and testing deer to see if they carry SARS-CoV-2. Once the researchers have the positive samples, they can begin sequencing genomes from the virus samples.

“Our group at Texas A&M will be responsible for working with collaborators to collect samples from deer,” Hamer said. “We’ll also be responsible for the initial screening for SARS-CoV-2. If we find positive samples, we ship them to Ginkgo and they’ll work to sequence the virus and analyze how the sequences compare to those found by others.”

In order to reach the sample size goals for the project, the researchers also are collaborating with the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (TVMDL) to gather samples from deer lymph nodes.

“TVMDL regularly gets samples from both wild and captive deer for chronic wasting disease (CWD) testing,” said Carlos Rodriguez, TVMDL epidemiologist. “The samples often come from hunter-harvested deer, and we are able to repurpose the remaining tissue to contribute to this COVID project.”

Because COVID-19 is resurgent in the human population, projects like this one are important given that scientists are still uncovering new ways that the disease continues to impact the world.

“The public health protective measures that are available for humans — like vaccines and masks — really aren’t options for deer,” Hamer said. “We’re interested to learn under what conditions deer become infected and how long they can maintain the infection in nature. Of course, we’re also interested to study potential onward transmission from deer to other deer, wildlife, or humans in order to learn how that may contribute to the overall ecology of this virus in nature.”

By Courtney Price, Texas A&M University School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

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NASA September 2023 temperature data shows continued record warming

Reports and Proceedings

NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

Continuing the temperature trend from this summer, September 2023 was the hottest September on record, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). The month also set the record for the highest temperature anomaly – the largest difference from the long-term average.

This visualization shows global temperature anomalies along with the underlying seasonal cycle. Temperatures advance from January through December left to right, rising during warmer months and falling during cooler months. The color of each line represents the year, with colder purples for the 1960s and warmer oranges and yellows for more recent years. A long-term warming trend can be seen as the height of each month increases over time, the result of human activities releasing greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

“What’s remarkable is that these record values are happening before the peak of the current El Nino event, whereas in 2016 the previous record values happened in the spring, after the peak,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of GISS. El Nino is the warm phase of a naturally recurring pattern of trade winds and ocean temperatures in the Eastern Tropical Pacific that influences global temperatures and precipitation patterns.

 

Researchers test seafloor fiber optic cable as an earthquake early warning system

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SEISMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

One of the biggest challenges for earthquake early warning systems (EEW) is the lack of seismic stations located offshore of heavily populated coastlines, where some of the world’s most seismically active regions are located. In a new study published in The Seismic Record, researchers show how unused telecommunications fiber optic cable can be transformed for offshore EEW.

Jiuxun Yin, a Caltech researcher now at SLB, and colleagues used 50 kilometers of a submarine telecom cable running between the United States and Chile, sampling seismic data at 8,960 channels along the cable for four days. The technique, called Distributed Acoustic Sensing or DAS, uses the tiny internal flaws in a long optical fiber as thousands of seismic sensors.

Yin and colleagues used the cable data to determine earthquake locations and estimate earthquake magnitudes for one onshore (magnitude 3.7) and two offshore (magnitude 2.7 and 3.3.) earthquakes during the study period.

Their results show that using this single DAS array offers an approximate three-second improvement in earthquake early warning compared to onshore DAS arrays. In a simulation run by the researchers, they found that by deploying multiple DAS arrays spaced 50 kilometers apart and working together in the area, they could improve EEW alert times in the subduction zone by five seconds.

“While we did expect some improvements due to the offshore placement of the DAS array, the actual speed gains were beyond our initial projections,” Yin said. “The key advantage is the array's offshore location, which eliminates the need to wait for seismic waves to reach land-based stations.”

The region offshore from Chile is similar to that of the Cascadia region offshore from Canada and the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Both areas contain an active subduction zone, where tectonic plates collide and one plate plunges beneath another, causingsome of history’s largest and most destructive earthquakes. Even offshore of Southern California, numerous faults have hosted magnitude 6 or larger earthquakes. In all of these densely populated coastal areas, offshore earthquake early warning could help protect lives and property.

“The primary reason for selecting this cable is Chile’s elevated seismic risk. The region experiences frequent offshore earthquakes and has been affected by several significant magnitude 8+ earthquakes in history, including the largest ever recorded in 1960,” Yin explained. “Given the high seismic risk and potentially devastating impacts of a large earthquake, there’s a pressing need for a reliable offshore earthquake early warning system in Chile.”

The researchers used a deep learning artificial intelligence model, which is trained and validated on previous seismic and DAS data, to pick out the earthquake waves from the DAS data of this offshore cable. “In the specific case of DAS, the volume of data collected is substantial. For real-time applications like EEW, pre-trained deep learning models provide a highly efficient and reliable option,” Yin said. He noted, however, that other traditional seismological methods of picking earthquakes can still be effective in processing DAS data with automation.

Yin said researchers need more data, especially from larger magnitude earthquakes, to develop and test EEW algorithms effectively, as well as more information on how DAS instruments respond before building a real-time EEW system that integrates with existing EEW frameworks.

There are plenty of places around the world to continue this research, he noted.

“There are more than 1500 cable landing stations around the globe, and the progress in the technology permits the use of operational cables and adding DAS systems without affecting [telecommunications] data transportation.” Yin said. “We believe that this opens up a host of exciting research opportunities, and we are keen to explore these in future studies. We are looking for close interactions with cable owners, environmental agencies, and policymakers to scale the DAS-EEW for the benefit of coastal communities.”

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JOURNAL

The Seismic Record

DOI

10.1785/0320230018 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Real‐Data Testing of Distributed Acoustic Sensing for Offshore Earthquake Early Warning

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Oct-2023

 

Whaling wiped out far more fin whales than previously thought

UCLA study shows a 99% population reduction in the 20th century, but genetic diversity remains high

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES

Key takeaways

• Whaling in the 20th century destroyed 99% of the Eastern North Pacific fin whale breeding  population.
• Because there is enough genetic diversity, current conservation measures should help the population rebound without becoming inbred.
• The future of fin whales in the Gulf of California depends on the recovery of the Eastern North Pacific population.

A new genomic study by UCLA biologists shows that whaling in the 20th century destroyed 99% of the Eastern North Pacific fin whale breeding, or “effective,” population — 29% more than previously thought.

But there is also some good news: Genes among members of this endangered species are still diverse enough that current conservation measures should be be enough to help the population rebound without becoming inbred. The study also found that the health of this group is essential for the survival of highly isolated, genetically distinct fin whales in the Gulf of California.

The study, published in Nature Communications, is among the first to use whole genome information to get a picture of the size and genetic diversity of today’s population. Previous studies had to rely on whaling records or mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited only from the mother, providing limited genetic information.

In the 19th century, whaling decimated most whale species around the world but left the largest ones — blue and fin whales — largely untouched. That changed with the advent of industrial whaling in the 20th century. By midcentury, close to a million fin whales worldwide had been slaughtered, at least 75,000 of these in the Eastern North Pacific.

“When you look at whaling records, you can only tell how many were killed. You can’t tell how many there were to begin with,” said corresponding author Meixi Lin, who worked on the project as a UCLA doctoral student and is now a Carnegie Institution for Science postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. “We know 20th century whaling was severe, but we didn’t know how severe it was for fin whales.”

To find out, then-postdoctoral researcher and corresponding author Sergio Nigenda-Morales extracted DNA from tissue samples taken from wild fin whales in the Eastern North Pacific and the Gulf of California. He rounded this out with DNA provided by colleagues at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In all, 50 whales were studied. Fin whales from the Gulf of California were included because the population there had been undisturbed by whaling, enabling researchers to assess their genetic diversity and learn how they were related to the Eastern North Pacific population.

“Getting samples from live whales is hard, because you don’t know where they’re going to be —and when they come up, you only have a moment to take the sample before they go back underwater,” said Nigenda-Morales, now an assistant professor at Cal State San Marcos. “It is a humbling experience to conduct field research and interact with the second-largest animal on the planet.”

The genome analyses revealed that the Gulf of California population diverged around 16,000 years ago, with a population that hovered around 114 adults of reproductive age. The population of breeding adults is a key indicator of a species’ ability to sustain itself. The Eastern North Pacific effective population remained at around 24,000 individuals for thousands of years, until a severe decline happened between 26 and 52 years ago — a period that coincides with 20th century whaling — to only about 305 individuals.

Past ecological studies had suggested a 70% reduction in fin whale populations, while earlier genetic studies estimated a much larger pre-whaling population.

“It’s usually hard to detect such strong recent reductions in the genome. But in this case, fin whales were really abundant before, which made the sudden reduction very obvious in our data. If the reduction hadn’t been so strong, we wouldn’t have been able to detect it,” Nigenda-Morales said.

When a population suffers such a drastic decline, harmful genes left in the remaining organisms can become amplified over time as the small population size inevitably forces individuals carrying those genes to breed together. These harmful genes can reduce the health of the overall population and cause it to die out. Genetic diversity is still high among Eastern North Pacific whales, meaning that multiple versions of many genes are still plentiful and harmful genes have not yet become common.

“Most of this variation originated long, long ago, so genetic diversity in the small number of surviving individuals comes from their ancient history,” said co-author Kirk Lohmueller, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.

Luckily, thanks to the slow pace of fin whale reproduction, the population reduction caused by whaling at its strongest point lasted for only two fin whale generations — a 50-year span — and ended with the implementation of the international whaling moratorium in 1985. Since then, the population has slowly recovered, and harmful genes have not had time to pile up.

However, computer simulations show that if the population remains at its current size, the diversity will begin to vanish. The study’s authors write that the most important thing governments can do to aid fin whale recovery is to continue to enforce the whaling ban so that fin whales have time to increase their numbers.

The future of fin whales in the Gulf of California also depends on the recovery of the Eastern North Pacific population. The genomic analysis showed that many harmful genes have become common in the former group, and that the only source of new genetic variants is the occasional Eastern North Pacific whale who wanders into their territory about once in every three generations. This infusion of new genetic material, however, has been enough to keep the population going.

For now, current protections for both populations appear sufficient, though they will need to remain in place for a long time. But climate change, ship strikes and other human-caused disturbances could jeopardize the species’ recovery. The authors expect that ongoing research will help identify additional conservation measures.

“With improvement in computational models, we can incorporate factors like climate change and relate the risk of extinction from human-mediated processes with what’s happening at the genomic level,” said Lohmueller. “Continuing to develop such models is as important as collecting more data.”

Nigenda-Morales and Lin undertook the research as doctoral students of UCLA professor and senior author Robert Wayne, who continued working on the project until he passed away late last year. The authors have dedicated the paper to him.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

 

Air pollution and breast cancer risk - a link that calls for political action

Reports and Proceedings

EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR MEDICAL ONCOLOGY

Lugano, Switzerland, 17 October 2023 – Women living and working in places with higher levels of fine particle air pollution are more likely to get breast cancer than those living and working in less polluted areas. Results of the first study to take account of the effects of both residential and workplace exposure to air pollution on breast cancer risk are presented at the ESMO Congress 2023 in Madrid, Spain (1).  

“Our data showed a statistically significant association between long term exposure to fine particle air pollution, at home and at work, and risk of breast cancer. This contrasts with previous research which looked only at fine particle exposure where women were living, and showed small or no effects on breast cancer risk,” said Professor Béatrice Fervers, Head of Prevention Cancer Environment Department, Léon Bérard Comprehensive Cancer Centre, France. 

  In the study, home and workplace exposure to pollution in 2419 women with breast cancer was compared to that in 2984 women without breast cancer over the period 1990-2011. The results showed that breast cancer risk increased by 28% when exposure to fine particle (PM2.5) air pollution increased by 10 µg/m3 – approximately equivalent to the difference 

inPM2.5 particle concentration typically seen in rural versus urban areas of Europe. Smaller increases in breast cancer risk were also recorded in women exposed to high levels of larger particle air pollution (PM10 and nitrogen dioxide). Fervers and colleagues now plan to investigate the effects of pollution exposure during commuting to get a complete picture of effects on breast cancer risk. 

Professor Charles Swanton, the Francis Crick Institute, London, UK, whose research suggesting how PM2.5 particles may trigger lung cancer in non-smokers was presented at ESMO Congress 2022 (2), stressed the importance of the new findings with breast cancer. 

“These very small particles can penetrate deep into the lung and get into the bloodstream from where they are absorbed into breast and other tissues. There is already evidence that air pollutants can change the architecture of the breast (3,4). It will be important to test if pollutants allow cells in breast tissue with pre-existing mutations to expand and drive tumour promotion possibly through inflammatory processes, similar to our observations in non-smokers with lung cancer,” he said. “It is very concerning that small pollutant particles in the air and indeed microplastic particles of similar size are getting into the environment when we don’t yet understand their potential to promote cancer. There is an urgent need to set up laboratory studies to investigate the effects of these small air pollutant particles on the latency, grade, aggression and progression of breast tumours,” he added. 

“There is now strong epidemiological and biological evidence for the link between PM2.5 particle exposure and cancer, and there are good clinical and economic reasons for reducing pollution in order to prevent cancers,” said Professor Jean-Yves Blay, ESMO Director of Public Policy.  

Following on a proposal from the European Commission in October 2022 to reduce the limit for PM2.5 particles in the air from the current 25 µg/m3 to 10 µg/m3 by 2030, ESMO urged a reduction in the PM2.5 limit still further to 5 µg/m3, in line with the World Health Organisation’s air quality guidance (5). “Reducing PM2.5 particles in the air to the WHO recommended level is critical because of their association with a variety of tumour types, including breast cancer,” Blay added. “We have a responsibility to push for this change, not only for people in Europe but worldwide where there are big variations in the pollution landscape.” The lower limit was indeed adopted by the European Parliament’s Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee in June 2023.  

More recently, in September 2023, the European Parliament adopted in plenary session its report on the ongoing revision of the EU Ambient Air Quality Directives, which reflects ESMO’s recommendations to set the annual limit value for Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5) at 5 µg/m³. This adoption opens interinstitutional negotiations between the co-legislators – European Parliament, European Commission and EU Council – to agree on the final text of the directive. (6,7) 

“By supporting our requests with solid scientific evidence, we are offering a new dimension to health public policy. The work is not over, and change will not happen overnight, but we are moving in the right direction,” the ESMO Public Policy Director concluded. 

 

-END- 

 

Notes to Editors 

Please make sure to use the official name of the meeting in your reports: ESMO Congress 2023 

Official Congress Hashtag: #ESMO23. Follow it to stay up to date and use it to take part in the conversation on X (Twitter), LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook 

 

Disclaimer 

This press release contains information provided by the author of the highlighted abstract and reflects the content of this abstract. It does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of ESMO who cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the data. Commentators quoted in the press release are required to comply with the ESMO Declaration of Interests policy and the ESMO Code of Conduct. 

 

References 

1 Fervers B et al. Longterm residential and workplace exposure to air pollution and breast cancer risk: A case-control study nested in the French E3N cohort from 1990 to 2011 will be presented by Fervers B. during the Mini Oral Session on Monday, 23 October 2023, 16:30-18:00 CEST, at ESMO Congress 2023, Madrid (Bilbao Auditorium). 

2 Swanton C et al. Mechanism of action and an actionable inflammatory axis for air pollution induced non-small cell lung cancer: Towards molecular cancer prevention. Presented at ESMO Congress 2022, Paris, France Presidential Symposium 1, LBA1 

3 Niehoff NM et al. Outdoor air pollution and terminal duct lobular involution of the normal breast. Breast Cancer Res 2020; 22,100.  

4Kotake R et al. An association between mammographic breast density and fine particulate matter among postmenopausal women. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2023 Feb;30(10):25953-25958.  

5 WHO global air quality guidelines: particulate matter (‎PM2.5 and PM10)‎, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240034228 

6 European Parliament. Revision of the ambient air quality directives. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-a-european-green-deal/file-revision-of-eu-ambient-air-quality-legislation 

7 European Parliament. Towards cleaner air for Europe. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2023/751388/EPRS_ATA(2023)751388_EN.pdf 

 

About the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)    
Representing more than 33,000 oncology professionals from 170 countries worldwide, ESMO is a reference for oncology education and information. Driven by a shared determination to secure the best possible outcomes for patients, ESMO is committed to standing by those who care about cancer through addressing the diverse needs of #ONEoncologycommunity, offering #educationforLIFE, and advocating for #accessiblecancerCARE. www.esmo.org     

 LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for LUNG CANCER 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for AIR POLLUTION 

LONGTERM RESIDENTIAL AND WORKPLACE EXPOSURE TO AIR POLLUTION AND BREAST CANCER RISK: A CASE-CONTROL STUDY NESTED IN THE FRENCH E3N COHORT FROM 1990 TO 2011 

B. Fervers1, M. Duboeuf1, A. Amadou1, T. Coudon1, L. Grassot1, E. Faure2, G. Severi3, F. Mancini3, P. Salizzoni4, J. Gulliver5, D. Praud1 [Text Wrapping Break]1Cancer And Environment Department, Centre Léon Bérard, Lyon/FRANCE, 2Exposome, Hérédité, Cancer Et Santé, Gustave Roussy, Villejuif/FRANCE, 3Exposome, Hérédité, Cancer Et Santé Inserm 1018, Gustave Roussy, Villejuif/FRANCE, 4Mécanique Des Fluides, Ecole Centrale, Ecully/FRANCE, 5Centre For Environmental Health And Sustainability, University of Leicester, Leicester/UNITED KINGDOM 

Background: Air pollution, classified as carcinogenic to humans, is a major public health concern. Studies on breast cancer are scarce and remain inconsistent. We studied the association between breast cancer risk and long-term exposure to particulate matters (PM2.5, PM10) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) estimated at the womens' residential and workplace addresses. Methods: We conducted a case-control study of 2419 cases and 2984 individually matched controls nested in the French prospective E3N cohort, over the period 1990-2011. Controls were matched to cases on department of residence, age (±1 year); date (±3 months), and menopausal status at blood collection. Annual mean PM2.5, PM10 and NO2 concentration levels were estimated using a Land Use Regression (LUR) model (resolution 50m x 50m) and were assigned to women based on their geocoded residential and workplace addresses. The mean exposure was calculated for each woman from their inclusion into the E3N cohort to their index date (date of diagnosis of cases). Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated using multivariate logistic regression models, for a 10 µg/m3 increase in PM2.5, PM10 and NO2. Adjustment variables were selected from the literature, using a directed acyclic graph. Results: The results showed a statistically significant linear increase in breast cancer risk related to mean exposure to PM2.5 (adjusted OR 1.28; CI 1.00–1.63, for an increment of 10 µg/m3). A numerically increased risk was observed for PM10 (adjusted OR1.09; CI 0.92–1.30) and NO2 (adjusted OR 1.05; CI 0.97–1.13) for an increment of 10 µg/m3. No effect modification by menopausal status was observed (p interaction 0.99, 0.90, and 0.86 respectively for PM2.5PM10 and NO2). Analyses by hormone receptor status showed a positive but not significant association for PM2.5 for oestrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer cases (adjusted OR 1.32; CI 0.97–1.79). Conclusions: To our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate breast cancer risk associated with long term air pollution exposure at both, the subjects’ residence and workplace, estimated using a very fine spatial resolution LUR model. Future studies should consider exposure during commuting. 

Legal entity responsible for the study: INSERM 

Funding: Foundation or academic group WITHOUT funding from a pharma, biotech, or other commercial company[Text Wrapping Break]- ARC Foundation for Cancer Research (CANCAIR201601245), ANSES, French League against Cancer, Fondation de France 

Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest. 

 

SEC insider trading rule has loopholes

Rule 10b5–1 aims to limit inside trades in the C-suite. How well is it working?

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

AUSTIN, Texas -- A rule to limit trading based on nonpublic stock information has limited effectiveness, according to a recent study by Texas McCombs Finance Professor Robert Parrino.

Issued in 2000 by the Securities & Exchange Commission, Rule 10b5–1 requires corporate insiders to schedule the purchase or sale of a predetermined number of shares through a third-party broker up to two years in advance. Because the trades under these “plan” sales are scheduled in advance of their execution, insiders are presumed less likely to be acting on inside information.

But how effectively do such plans curb insider trading? Parrino, with co-authors Eli Fich of Drexel University and Anh Tran of City University of London, investigate this by examining 13,930 stock sales by 1,629 CEOs at 1,322 firms from 2013 to 2020.

Researchers found that Rule 10b5–1 plans are widely used, accounting for 61% of all stock sales by CEOs in their sample. As might be expected, plan sales are more common at firms when there is greater risk of litigation, such as when a sale precedes an earnings announcement that might raise insider trading accusations. Rule 10b5–1 plans give executives an affirmative legal defense against accusations of insider trading, Parrino says.

But his research also found that CEOs still have ways to game the system within a plan.

Calling Off Trades. Executives who schedule trades within a Rule 10b5–1 plan have historically been under no obligation to proceed with them. If an executive knows nonpublic information that could deflate the company’s stock price, they can cancel disadvantageous sales by selectively canceling the plan or by using limit orders within the plan. The study reports evidence consistent with the idea that sales are more likely to be cancelled when they would result in a loss.

Corporate Decisions. CEOs who use a Rule 10b5–1 plan also can benefit when they exercise their influence in two key areas: what and how company information gets publicly reported and high-level decisions on company direction. Both kinds of decisions can bump up the stock price.

“A CEO who wants to behave opportunistically can slow down or speed up the revelation of relevant information,” Parrino says.

“The CEO can also make operating decisions that affect the business in ways that weren’t predictable at the time the plan was set up but that can benefit the CEO now.”

The study did show that abnormal profits on CEO stock sales are smaller when executed within plans rather than outside them. That suggests the plans discourage some insider trading.

But there’s one big exception: When stock being sold represents a higher percentage of the CEO’s overall holdings of the firm’s stock, the abnormal profits mirror those from sales outside of a plan.

“This suggests that when a lot of money is at stake, you are more likely to see more opportunism even within plans,” Parrino says.

To close these loopholes, SEC financial disclosure regulations took effect in April 2023 requiring executives to wait 90 days after starting or changing a trading plan before trading any of the reported stock. They also require executives to detail their 10b5–1 plans in quarterly and annual reports. The SEC cited Parrino’s study in its proposal.

“To the extent that these plans are not fully eliminating opportunistic behavior, their characteristics can be tweaked to improve their effectiveness,” he says.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Financial Economics

DOI

10.1016/j.jfineco.2023.04.009 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

When and how are rule 10b5-1 plans used for insider stock sales?

 

New dating of cave art reveals history of Puerto Rican people

New research presented at GSA Connects 2023

Meeting Announcement

GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

 

IMAGE: 

CAVE ART CAN SOMETIMES INCLUDE TWO DIFFERENT TIMES OF CREATION. IN THIS IMAGE, THE DARKER LIZARD IS A YOUNGER DRAWING THAN THE SUN THAT IS DRAWN BENEATH IT.

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CREDIT: A. ACOSTA-COLON.

17 October 2023
The Geological Society of America
Release No. 23-40
Contact: Justin Samuel
+1-303-357-1026
jsamuel@geosociety.org

For Immediate Release

Leer en español.

Contributed by Sarah Derouin

Pittsburgh, Pa., USA: In the karstic caves of Puerto Rico, cave art paints the rock walls. Previous research has assigned ages to this art based on the ages of nearby archaeological artifacts within the caves, but these ages are relative and may not reflect the true timing of the art creation.

Now, a new study to be presented Wednesday at the Geological Society of America’s GSA Connects 2023 meeting shows that researchers have refined the age of this rupestrian art by dating the pigment in the drawings. Angel Acosta-Colon, a geophysicist at University of Puerto Rico (UPR) at Arecibo, will present the findings.

In Puerto Rican caves, there are three types of art: petroglyphs (carved into the rock), pyroglyphs (drawn from the burnt remnants of objects), and pictographs, or cave drawings. Acosta-Colon says these pictograph drawings are in organic black material, perfect for radiocarbon dating.

Acosta-Colon and his colleague Reniel Rodríguez, an archaeologist at UPR Utuado, visited 11 different caves on La Isla Grande, the big island of the Puerto Rican archipelago. From these caves, they sampled 61 pigments in pictographic art.

The researchers were thoughtful about which art to sample, sampling art that is commonly seen and not unique. “[The pictographs] are not an infinite resource—they are limited,” explains Acosta-Colon. “So if we touch one, we touch it forever and for the future generations, we are not allowing the pleasure of seeing what we see.”

They were also conservative about how much of the material they collected, as sampling destroys a small area of the art. Acosta-Colon says that they take 1 to 2 mg samples from the black markings on cave walls for their analyses.

They ran the microsamples through the Center for Applied Isotope Studies (AIS) at the University of Georgia to get carbon-14 ages for the artwork. The earliest pictographs of abstract, geometrical shapes were dated to ca. 700–400 BCE, coinciding with the Archaic Age.

“That is very important to us because when the European Invasion came to Puerto Rico, they put in a document that our precolonial population was only there for 400 to 500 years,” says Acosta-Colon. “So this proves that we were here [thousands] of years before the European Invasion, and that is documented in science, not context archeology.”

They found that more anthropological-type drawings—with simple shapes of human bodies—were drawn between 200 and 400 CE. “We have gaps of time and that's interesting because we don't know what happened,” says Acosta-Colon, adding that they could fill those gaps with more sampling around the island.

The research team also found more detailed human and animal drawings that were created between 700 and 800 CE. These types of drawings continued throughout the next century, extending through European colonization (around 1500 CE), and include images of horses, ships, and other animals.

Within the array of animals, they discovered a particularly unusual find. “We have an image that looks like a lion—but in Puerto Rico, we don’t have lions,” says Acosta-Colon. When he and Rodriguez considered who could have seen a lion, they thought about the slaves that were brought to the island by the Spanish.

The idea, he notes, is controversial. “But the age of the art is around 1500,” he says. “We have data to corroborate what, I think, is one of the first slave art in caves in Puerto Rico.”

Understanding when these pictographs were created helps explain the history of the Puerto Rican people, says Acosta-Colon. “Normally we get the European history version of Puerto Rico, but this is direct evidence that the story in Puerto Rico didn’t start with the European Invasion, it started much, much earlier in history,” he notes.

He believes that studying more cave art sites may push back the human history record to 5000 BCE. This art, along with archeological finds, can reconstruct the “history of our people, from Archaic people, to the Taino people to the pre-Columbian time.

CAPTION

Over time, the cave art transitioned from more basic geometric shapes, to detailed images of recognizable animals, like this sting ray.

Angel Acosta-Colon (shown here) poses with a number of pictographs, including an unusual find—an animal that looks like a lion. He speculates that this may be the first cave art drawn by slaves that were brought to the island during Spanish colonization.

CREDIT

Credit: A. Acosta-Colon.

Radiocarbon dating of cave pictographic rock art in Puerto Rico

Contact: Angel Acosta-Colon, angel.acosta2@upr.edu
208: D11. Recent Advances in Geoarchaeology: Studies from Asia, Europe and the Americas
Wed., 18 Oct. 2023, 10:20–10:35 a.m.

The Geological Society of America (https://www.geosociety.org) unites a diverse community of geoscientists in a common purpose to study the mysteries of our planet (and beyond) and share scientific findings. Members and friends around the world, from academia, government, and industry, participate in GSA meetings, publications, and programs at all career levels, to foster professional excellence. GSA values and supports inclusion through cooperative research, public dialogue on earth issues, science education, and the application of geoscience in the service of humankind.

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