International graduate and postdoctoral trainees in biomedicine are struggling with career confidence, study says

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA HEALTH CARE

 

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MAIN EFFECTS OF CITIZENSHIP AND GENDER ON TRAINEE CAREER SELF-EFFICACY. 

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CREDIT: CHATTERJEE ET AL (2024)

Chapel Hill, NC – Biomedical programs in the United States attract a significant number of graduate and postdoctoral trainees from around the world. Non-citizen trainees face several systemic barriers that negatively affect their confidence in their careers and ability to take charge of their career decisions, termed career self-efficacy.

Using national data from 6,000 respondents across 17 institutions, a new study in PLOS ONE found that citizenship status and gender were associated with different levels of career self-efficacy. Most notably, international and female trainees reported lower career-self-efficacy across the national sample.

Rebekah L. Layton, PhD, director of professional development programs in the Office of Graduate Education (OGE) at the UNC School of Medicine, and Ana T. Nogueira, PhD, an education research scholar and postdoctoral research fellow in the UNC Department of Pharmacology, co-led the study on this multi-institutional team.

“The challenges addressed resonate deeply with my experiences as an international woman in the United States,” said Nogueira, who is also a former education research fellow in the OGE and co-first author on the study. “The study highlights how much barriers limit and impact international trainees and their own perceived and actual career options, depending on visa status, lived experience, and access to professional development support.”

Deepshikha Chatterjee, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at Baruch College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, and Sunita Chaudhary, PhD, associate professor at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and director of research education at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, co-led the study as well.

Chaudhary echoes the sentiments of many others on the research team who, at some point in their careers, worked as international trainees in the United States.

“The findings of this study resonate with my lived experience as a brown woman who immigrated to United States for my own PhD degree,” said Chaudhary, who as co-senior author on the study.

Systemic barriers, such as complex visa regulations, significantly limit the opportunities of non-citizen trainees. Visas can also restrict where non-citizen trainees intern or work off-campus. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, the United States government issued a policy that international students must leave the country if all their classes had been moved online.

“I hope this work inspires urgent conversations around the precarious conditions facing our talented and highly skilled trainees due to a US immigration system that creates barriers and disparities which marginalize our human capital and limit potential,” said Chatterjee, who was co-first author on the study.

“This study sheds light on how immigration status intersects with individuals’ perceptions of their own capabilities, influencing their career trajectories and opportunities for advancement,” added Christiann Gaines, PhD, assistant director of doctoral success in the OGE. “Visa restrictions, cultural adaptation, and limited access to resources, can significantly impact trainees’ confidence in navigating career paths within the biomedical field.”

In addition to assessing how trainees’ race and citizenship relate to career-efficacy, the current study also examined how these factors relate to their pursuit of research-intensive principal investigator-focused careers. Researchers found that trainees that are on the principal investigator career pathway had higher self-efficacy compared to trainees displaying diverse career interests.

Additionally, trainees who reported higher career self-efficacy felt more supported by their graduate program and/or department. Layton says that these results will help draw attention to the specific needs of the international trainee community within graduate and postdoctoral training, with a renewed focus on the value of offering tailored opportunities for career and professional development.

“Our work suggests that different career pathways, citizenship status, and gender combinations could benefit from tailored programming to address needs that may not currently be met, based on data from across the country,” said Layton.

This study represents another step in the right direction. By recognizing and addressing these intersecting factors, researchers and graduate educators will be able to work towards creating more inclusive environments and pathways for all aspiring scientists, regardless of their background or citizenship status. It is equally important to keep engaging in discussions and resolving obstacles that students face when trying to further their education, training, and career development.

“Understanding the barriers, and then providing a means for quantifying how these barriers affect learning, allow us to continue creating interventions and programs that have the potential to increase student support and success, no matter where they are from,” said Nisan M. Hubbard, PhD, who was a former UNC SPIRE Fellow and co-author on the paper.

The author team looks forward to continuing to explore factors that impact career success for biomedical graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. Read more about companion paper on career self-efficacy in underrepresented biomedical scientists at: https://news.unchealthcare.org/2023/03/researchers-examine-career-confidence-in-underrepresented-biomedical-scientist-trainees/.

This paper extends from Layton’s NIH R01 SCISIPBIO project on graduate education, training, and biomedical workforce development. The team’s ongoing work can be found at the UNC’s PhD Integrated Research on Education and Career Training Lab (PhDIRECT).

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0296246 

ARTICLE TITLE

Citizenship status and career self-efficacy: An intersectional study of biomedical trainees in the United States

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Mar-2024

 

The next antioxidant superfood? Canadian sea buckthorn berries offer diabetes and obesity potential

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SOCIETY OF CHEMICAL INDUSTRY

 

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RENAN DANIELSKI, CO-AUTHOR OF THE STUDY WITH POWDERED SEA BUCKTHORN BERRIES

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CREDIT: RENAN DANIELSKI, MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY OF NEWFOUNDLAND

New research, published in SCI’s Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture illuminates the untapped potential of the shrub sea buckthorn as a rich source of natural antioxidants in North America. 

The study, which was carried out by researchers at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada and led by Professor Fereidoon Shahidi, outlines the unique nutritional profile of sea buckthorn berries grown in Canada and highlights their commercial potential as a bioactive-loaded superfood.

Sea buckthorn is a deciduous, thorny plant found along the coasts of northwestern Europe as well as temperate regions of central Asia. Its berries and leaves are widely used for their nutritional, pharmaceutical and functional properties – sea buckthorn oil is rich in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, vitamins E, B, and A and polyphenols.

In Canada, the plant was introduced in the early 2000s following research by governmental agencies on the crop's commercial potential. As Renan Danielski, a PhD student at the University of Newfoundland and author on the study explains, ‘Sea buckthorn is a unique crop with vast potential for utilisation. Popular in Asia and North-Western Europe, there is an opportunity to replicate this success in North America by leveraging the unique qualities of locally grown varieties.’

Motivated by the experimental status and limited commercialisation of sea buckthorn in North America to date, the researchers set out to characterise the unique composition of polyphenols, a class of compounds with antioxidative properties, in Canadian cultivars. 

‘Understanding how our cultivar compares globally can help communicate the benefits to consumers and establish a market presence,’ notes Fereidoon Shahidi, Professor of Biochemistry at Memorial University of Newfoundland and corresponding author of the study.

The study's findings highlight the presence of key polyphenolic compounds in sea buckthorn pomace and seeds, each boasting potential health benefits ranging from cardiovascular protection to anti-inflammatory properties. Importantly, geographical factors influence the polyphenolic profile of sea buckthorn berries, with the researchers identifying several distinct compounds with enhanced bioactivity which are only contained in the sea buckthorn cultivar grown in Newfoundland.

Moreover, the sea buckthorn extracts demonstrated promising in vitro antidiabetic and anti-obesity potential, paving the way for further investigation into their mechanisms and potential therapeutic applications.

‘This is a first step in understanding how sea buckthorn polyphenols can modulate our physiology in a beneficial manner. Future research needs to focus on understanding the mechanisms behind those effects and further experimentation using animal models and humans. If these effects are confirmed in vivo, we can envision the use of sea buckthorn polyphenols for therapeutic and pharmacological purposes, aiding in the prevention and treatment of diabetes, obesity, and many other conditions,’ remarked Danielski.

The findings of this study pave the way for harnessing sea buckthorn berries as a valuable source of natural antioxidants in North America. As consumer interest in functional foods and “nutraceuticals” continues to grow, sea buckthorn presents itself as a sustainable and health-enhancing option.

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JOURNAL

Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture

DOI

10.1002/jsfa.13386 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Phenolic composition and bioactivities of sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.) fruit and seeds: an unconventional source of natural antioxidants in North America

 

University of Calgary research finds a direct communication path between the lungs and the brain

Findings show that communication can alter the way the brain functions and the way someone behaves

UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

University of Calgary researchers have discovered the lungs communicate directly with the brain when there is an infection. Findings show the brain plays a critical role in triggering the symptoms of sickness, which may change the way we treat respiratory infections and chronic conditions.  

“The lungs are using the same sensors and neurons in the pain pathway to let the brain know there’s an infection,” says Dr. Bryan Yipp, MD '05, MSc'05, clinician researcher at the Cumming School of Medicine and senior author on the study. “The brain prompts the symptoms associated with sickness; that overall feeling of being unwell, feeling tired and loosing your appetite. The discovery indicates we may have to treat the nervous system as well as the infection.”

Prior to this study, conducted in mice, it was thought infections in the lungs and pneumonia induce inflammatory molecules that eventually made their way to the brain through the blood stream. Sickness was thought to be a consequence of the immune system kicking into action. However, findings reveal that sickness results from nervous system activation in the lung.

Understanding the lung-brain dialogue is important for treatment because bacteria that cause lung infections can produce a biofilm, a coating to surround themselves so the nervous system can’t see them. That allows the bug to hide out in the lungs for a long time, which may shed light across diverse serious lung infections that are less symptomatic. For example, an unexplained anomaly Yipp witnessed in the intensive care unit (ICU) during COVID. The phenomenon, coined “happy hypoxia”, was being recorded in ICUs throughout the world.

“We would have patients whose oxygen levels were extremely low and x-rays confirmed they may need to be put on life support. Yet, when I went to see the patient, they would say I feel fine,” says Yipp. “These people were experiencing limited sickness symptoms even though the virus was aggressively damaging their lungs.”

Yipp says understanding the lung brain communication pathways may also have broad implications for people with chronic lung infections like cystic fibrosis (CF). Many people with CF have a biofilm bacterium in their lungs and are asymptomatic. They feel okay, but then have a flare where they can become very ill. The reason for the flare can’t always be traced.  

"It is possible the flare is also neurological that these people live asymptomatically because bacteria are hiding out,” says Yipp.

The findings, published in Cell, are the work of an interdisciplinary team including experts in neurobiology, microbiology, immunology, and infectious disease.

“Physician specialties are usually based on individual organs, with pulmonologists caring for the lungs and neurologists caring for the brain. Our study shows the lung is altering the brain and the brain is altering the organ. This intersection of communication is a different way of thinking about disease,” says Yipp. “It’s all connected to the brain and there are probably even more complex circuits that are happening. We can now think about targeting neurocircuitry along with antibiotics to deal with infections and the sickness they cause.”

University of Calgary researchers Drs. Christophe Altier, PhD, Joe Harrison, PhD, and Deborah Kurrasch, PhD, along with Dr. Jaideep Bains, PhD, Krembil Research Institute, Toronto, are corresponding authors on the study.

The researchers add there was one more unique finding. Male mice were much sicker than the females even though they had the same bacterial infection. Researchers found that male sickness was more dependent on neuronal communications then females. Yipp says this finding could lend credibility to the so-called “man flu”, a colloquial term where men are thought to wildly exaggerate sickness due to respiratory infections. Turns out they may not be exaggerating, after all.  

University of Calgary researchers have discovered the lungs communicate directly with the brain when there is an infection. Findings show the brain plays a critical role in triggering the symptoms of sickness, which may change the way we treat respiratory infections and chronic conditions.  

“The lungs are using the same sensors and neurons in the pain pathway to let the brain know there’s an infection,” says Dr. Bryan Yipp, MD '05, MSc'05, clinician researcher at the Cumming School of Medicine and senior author on the study. “The brain prompts the symptoms associated with sickness; that overall feeling of being unwell, feeling tired and loosing your appetite. The discovery indicates we may have to treat the nervous system as well as the infection.”

Prior to this study, conducted in mice, it was thought infections in the lungs and pneumonia induce inflammatory molecules that eventually made their way to the brain through the blood stream. Sickness was thought to be a consequence of the immune system kicking into action. However, findings reveal that sickness results from nervous system activation in the lung.

Understanding the lung-brain dialogue is important for treatment because bacteria that cause lung infections can produce a biofilm, a coating to surround themselves so the nervous system can’t see them. That allows the bug to hide out in the lungs for a long time, which may shed light across diverse serious lung infections that are less symptomatic. For example, an unexplained anomaly Yipp witnessed in the intensive care unit (ICU) during COVID. The phenomenon, coined “happy hypoxia”, was being recorded in ICUs throughout the world.

“We would have patients whose oxygen levels were extremely low and x-rays confirmed they may need to be put on life support. Yet, when I went to see the patient, they would say I feel fine,” says Yipp. “These people were experiencing limited sickness symptoms even though the virus was aggressively damaging their lungs.”

Yipp says understanding the lung brain communication pathways may also have broad implications for people with chronic lung infections like cystic fibrosis (CF). Many people with CF have a biofilm bacterium in their lungs and are asymptomatic. They feel okay, but then have a flare where they can become very ill. The reason for the flare can’t always be traced.  

"It is possible the flare is also neurological that these people live asymptomatically because bacteria are hiding out,” says Yipp.

The findings, published in Cell, are the work of an interdisciplinary team including experts in neurobiology, microbiology, immunology, and infectious disease.

“Physician specialties are usually based on individual organs, with pulmonologists caring for the lungs and neurologists caring for the brain. Our study shows the lung is altering the brain and the brain is altering the organ. This intersection of communication is a different way of thinking about disease,” says Yipp. “It’s all connected to the brain and there are probably even more complex circuits that are happening. We can now think about targeting neurocircuitry along with antibiotics to deal with infections and the sickness they cause.”

University of Calgary researchers Drs. Christophe Altier, PhD, Joe Harrison, PhD, and Deborah Kurrasch, PhD, along with Dr. Jaideep Bains, PhD, Krembil Research Institute, Toronto, are corresponding authors on the study.

The researchers add there was one more unique finding. Male mice were much sicker than the females even though they had the same bacterial infection. Researchers found that male sickness was more dependent on neuronal communications then females. Yipp says this finding could lend credibility to the so-called “man flu”, a colloquial term where men are thought to wildly exaggerate sickness due to respiratory infections. Turns out they may not be exaggerating, after all.  

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JOURNAL

Cell

DOI

10.1016/j.cell.2024.03.001 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Biofilm exopolysaccharides alter sensory-neuron-mediated sickness during lung infection

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

21-Mar-2024

 

Species diversity promotes ecosystem stability

Biodiversity loss may accelerate ecosystem destabilization

MCGILL UNIVERSITY

 

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FROM TROPICAL RAINFORESTS TO CORAL REEFS, SOME OF EARTH’S MOST DIVERSE ECOSYSTEMS ARE ALSO THE MOST STABLE. THIS STAGGERING DIVERSITY STANDS IN OPPOSITION TO ECOLOGICAL THEORY, WHICH FOR DECADES HAS PREDICTED THAT DIVERSITY BEGETS INSTABILITY. BY USING A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO MODELLING SPECIES GROWTH, BASED ON EXTENSIVE DATA, THE RESEARCH SUGGESTS THAT ALTHOUGH ALL SPECIES IN ECOSYSTEMS INITIALLY GROW EXPONENTIALLY, THIS GROWTH EVENTUALLY SLOWS, CREATING A BALANCED ECOSYSTEM. [

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CREDIT: PHOTOS: RHETT BUTLER AND MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE

Species diversity promotes ecosystem stability

Biodiversity loss may accelerate ecosystem destabilization

What maintains stability within an ecosystem and prevents a single best competitor from displacing other species from a community? Does ecosystem stability depend upon the presence of a wide variety of species, as early ecologists believed, or does diversity do the exact opposite, and lead to instability, as modern theory predicts?

Resolving a long-standing debate among ecologists

A new study from McGill University and the Max Planck Institute and published recently in Science suggests an answer to this question that has been a subject of debate among ecologists for half a century.

The researchers approached the question of population growth using a model that, so far, had not been used in this context – though it aligns with conventional wisdom and the way that people have traditionally modelled individual growth (from birth to maturity).  

The researchers used data about population abundance, growth and biomass from a variety of species – including insects, fish and mammals – from across the globe, collected over the past 60 years. Their results, based on extensive analysis, suggests that, contrary to contemporary ecological theory, species diversity leads to ecosystem stability, as early ecologists had believed.

Growth in populations slows with density

“While nearly all prior theory assumes that populations grow exponentially, there is growing evidence that species actually follow a slightly different course, one in which exponential growth continuously slows down. It’s a bit like the law of diminishing returns in economics.”  says Ian Hatton, a research associate in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, at McGill University and the corresponding author on the paper.

“What’s amazing is that such a small difference in population growth can have such a large effect on community interactions, completely reversing the predictions from decades of theory.”

Dangers of disturbing the balance

Their findings raise alarming questions about the potential large-scale impacts of biodiversity loss.

“This research is becoming increasingly urgent given the current rates of species extinction and loss of biodiversity,” says Hatton. “In addition to better aligning theory with data, the model makes an unsettling prediction: losses in biodiversity can further destabilize an ecosystem and prevent them from recovering after a disturbance.”

The study:

“Diversity begets stability: sublinear growth and competitive coexistence across ecosystems” by I. Hatton et al was published in Science

DOI: 10.1126/science.adg8488

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adg8488 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Diversity begets stability: sublinear growth and competitive coexistence across ecosystems

Li

 

Crawfish could transfer ionic lithium from their environment into food chain

Reports and Proceedings

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

 

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Watch a short Q&A video about this research on YouTube.

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CREDIT: AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

NEW ORLEANS, March 20, 2024 — From cell phones to watches to electric cars, lithium-ion rechargeable batteries power a plethora of devices. The increased use of this technology means more lithium could find its way into the environment as consumers discard electronic products. Now, researchers describe how lithium can accumulate in a common Southern crustacean: the crawfish. As the season for catching and eating mudbugs comes into full swing, the researchers’ findings highlight the potential implications for public health and the environment.

The researchers will present their results today at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS Spring 2024 is a hybrid meeting being held virtually and in person March 17-21; it features nearly 12,000 presentations on a range of science topics.

“As aquatic organisms, crawfish can take up large amounts of lithium dissolved in water. Because other creatures — including people — eat crawfish, looking at them allows us to see how lithium moves through the food chain, and potentially into us,” says Joseph Kazery, a professor of biology.

Two undergraduate students in Kazery’s lab at Mississippi College, Andrew Doubert and Javian Ervin, are presenting results of their experiments on uptake of ionic lithium by different crawfish organs, as well as the impact of seasonal temperatures. “If crawfish are raised near a landfill or a polluted site, runoff could expose them to lithium, with effects we don’t yet fully understand,” Ervin says. “I myself eat crawfish, so this issue is important to me.”    

Lithium contamination is not new. Even before lithium-ion batteries became widespread, lithium was, and still is, used as a medication to treat mood disorders. It enters the water supply in those applications because typical wastewater treatment does not remove drug contaminants. At high levels, lithium can have toxic effects on human health, including potentially damaging heart muscle cells, as well as causing confusion and speech impairment. In other animals, it can cause kidney damage and hypothyroidism. Studies have also shown that when lithium accumulates in plants, it can inhibit their growth, Kazery says.

Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends discarding lithium-ion batteries at dedicated collection points, Kazery says they often end up in landfills. Soaring demand along with lax disposal practices suggests lithium is on the verge of becoming a significant environmental contaminant, he says.

As fully aquatic organisms that spend their lives within a relatively small area, crawfish (Procambarus clarkii) reflect local lithium contamination and could serve as powerful bioindicators of its presence in an environment. The lithium they contain could be passed through the food chain to predators, including humans, either directly or indirectly through crawfish-eating fish that people consume.

For its experiments, the team purchased crawfish bred for research. Knowing that the liver collects toxins from the human body for subsequent removal, Doubert wondered whether lithium would accumulate in the crawfish version of this organ: the hepatopancreas. To find out, he added ionic lithium to food for five crawfish, while giving another five lithium-free food. He then examined the amount of lithium present in four of their organs after one week. He found, on average, the most lithium in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, followed by the gills, the hepatopancreas and, finally, the abdominal muscle in the tail.

The researchers think the GI tract likely contained the highest level because the lithium-spiked food remains there during digestion. Meanwhile, the gills and the hepatopancreas both pick it up while removing it from the body. People predominantly eat the tail, which appears to take up lithium, but not as readily as the other body parts studied.

Doubert also found that 27.5% of the lithium he fed them had passed from the animals’ GI tracts into other tissues. Animals further up the food chain can accumulate higher levels of toxic substances if they eat contaminated prey, so lithium will likely become more concentrated in the predators of crawfish. The researchers expect the high rate of absorption Doubert saw to exacerbate this accumulation in both humans and the other animals that eat crawfish. 

Water temperature that crawfish inhabit varies significantly throughout the year. Those shifts affect the animals’ metabolism, even causing them to become inactive during winter. Knowing this, Ervin decided to look at the effects of temperature on lithium uptake. He placed crawfish in tanks kept at temperatures as low as 50 degrees Fahrenheit and as high as 90 degrees Fahrenheit and added a consistent concentration of ionic lithium to the water. After five days, he found that lithium uptake by the abdominal muscle and a part of the crawfish that Doubert did not study — the animals’ exoskeleton — increased in the warmest tank. These results suggest that the animals may contain the most lithium during the warm months, according to Ervin.

The crawfishes’ weight also decreased in warmer water. At this point, it’s not clear how or whether the crawfishes’ weight loss was connected to the lithium they accumulated, Ervin says, noting that the team plans to follow up on these results.   

“A lot of people think the use of lithium-ion batteries is a good thing right now, but it is important to explore the effects that may be coming down the road,” Doubert says.  

The research was funded by Mississippi College’s Department of Biological Sciences and the Office of Research, Department of Student Research.

Visit the ACS Spring 2024 program to learn more about these presentations, “Absorption of lithium in the various organs of crayfish in a laboratory environment” and “Comparison of methods for determining stress in a crayfish model and environmental application,” and other scientific presentations.

###

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS’ mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and all its people. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

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Title
Temperature effects on adsorption of a new pollutant in crayfish

Abstract
Crayfish are an integral part of an ecosystem and could pass on substances to different trophic levels as well reflect thermal changes in the environment by changing body mass and physiological changes in response to changing temperatures. Temperature can affect by crayfishes by influence ion imbalance and alter metabolic pathways. Lithium is found in a trace number of soils, rocks, and in the aquatic environment. Lithium batteries are currently found in phones, car batteries, and watches making them readily available in our environment due to the lack of correct disposal. The purpose of this study is to test lithium adsorption and absorption in crayfish in increasing water temperatures. Live Procambarus clarkii crayfish were placed in four temperature-controlled tanks measuring 10.0, 18.0, 25.0, and 32.0 °C, respectively. Specimens were maintained at a constant pH with a 1 mL/kg solution of lithium carbonate added in each tank. Crawfish biometric data was collected to determine variability of transport of lithium caused by temperature. The exoskeleton and abdomen were separated and digested using acid digestion procedures. These samples were analyzed in an ICP-OES. In this experiment we expect to find increasing concentration in the exoskeleton cuticle due to lithium adsorption in crayfish in respect to temperature.

Title 
Absorption of lithium in the various organs of crayfish in a laboratory environment 

Abstract 
Heavy metals, such as lithium, are an upcoming contaminant. Lithium has many applications in alloys and batteries. With the increased use of lithium-ion batteries, it’s only a matter of time before they find their way into environmental ecosystems. Organisms such as crayfish can be utilized to determine heavy metal contamination because the freshwater crawfish, specifically Procambarus clarkii, accumulates heavy metals from water and sediments in which it lives. Crayfish are known as bottom-dwellers of their aquatic ecosystem and tend to accumulate metals in their tissues, but can also exhibit a high resilience to environmental and metal contamination. The purpose of this study is to determine the percent of absorption and translocation of lithium to various organs, as well as, to determine a hierarchical order of lithium in crayfish organs. Biometric data collected from the specimens was used to determine variations of transported lithium. Male and female Procambrius clarkii were fed 5 mg/kg of lithium-spiked food pellets. After several days, the hepatopancreas, gills, abdominal muscle, and intestines were removed, acid-digested, and then analyzed by an ICP-OES. Results are expected to yield higher concentrations of lithium in the digestive tract, followed by, the hepatopancreas as it is the organ that deals with the absorption and storage of digested food. Levels in the gills and abdominal muscles are expected to be of lower concentration. 

Crawfish can accumulate lithium, an environmental contaminant that is expected to increase as battery use grows, and that could affect the people who eat them.

CREDIT

Javian Ervin

Watch a Headline Science video about this research on YouTube.

CREDIT

American Chemical Society

Rio Tinto to invest $350 million in Argentina lithium project

Reuters | March 19, 2024 

At its Rincon project, Rio is developing a small starter battery-grade lithium carbonate plant with capacity of 3,000 tonnes per year. (Image courtesy of Rio Tinto.)

Global miner Rio Tinto will invest $350 million at its Rincon lithium plant in Argentina as it works to begin production by the end of the year, the company said this week following chief executive Jakob Stausholm’s visit to the site.


“The hard work of our Rincon team is laying the groundwork for our first lithium production by year’s end,” he said in a statement to Reuters late on Monday, after a recent trip to the project in the northern province of Salta.

Rio Tinto, the world’s biggest iron ore producer, is one of the few large mining companies betting on lithium even as counterparts such as BHP stay away from investing in the metal, which is used in electric vehicle batteries.

The company purchased the Rincon project from Rincon Mining in 2022 for $825 million, and plans to develop a battery-grade lithium carbonate plant with an annual capacity of 3,000 tons.

Rio Tinto said it is working with local communities and authorities to ensure environmental standards.

Argentina, part of a so-called “lithium triangle” with Chile and Bolivia which holds half the world’s resources of the mineral, has increasingly attracted investment from international lithium miners.

The country’s lithium production increased more than 45% from 2022 to 2023, according to the US Geological Survey, reaching 9,600 metric tons.

(By Lucila Sigal; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon and Alistair Bell)

Sigma Lithium receives letter of arbitration from LG Energy Solution

Reuters | March 19, 2024 | 

Sigma Lithium reports an expected annualized production of 270,000 tonnes Li2O this year. Credit: Sigma Lithium

Sigma Lithium said on Tuesday its unit received an initiation letter of arbitration from South Korean company LG Energy Solution.


In its request for arbitration, LG Energy alleges that Sigma Lithium is in breach of certain provisions in connection to a lithium supply agreement entered in 2021.

“The claims are completely without merit and intends to defend its interests vigorously,” Sigma said in a statement.

US-listed shares of Sigma were down 1.6% at $12.35 in extended trade.

In 2021, Sigma and LG Energy had entered into a six-year offtake agreement for battery grade sustainable lithium concentrate scales from 60,000 tons per year in 2023 to 100,000 tons per year from 2024 to 2027.

(By Kabir Dweit and Arunima Kumar; Editing by Alan Barona)

Column: Albemarle looks to shed more light on lithium pricing

Reuters | March 19, 2024 | 

Image: Albemarle

Albemarle, the world’s largest producer of lithium, has announced it will conduct a series of auctions for its products on the Metalshub digital trading platform.


The first “bidding event” will be for 10,000 metric tons of spodumene ore and is scheduled for March 26.

The aim, according to Albemarle’s notice to customers, is to “explore price discovery while ensuring a fair and transparent process for all customers”.

The key word in that sentence is “transparent”. The entire lithium supply chain has been rocked by the collapse in prices over the last year.

But just how reliable an indicator are those prices? Albemarle’s decision to conduct a series of online auctions suggests it thinks the lithium industry could do better.

Fractured pricing

The explosive growth of the electric vehicle battery market has transformed lithium from a specialty niche product to mainstream industrial material in the space of just 10 years or so.

Lithium pricing hasn’t yet evolved to match the scale of that transformation.

Albemarle, like most established producers, has historically sold most of its lithium on fixed-term contracts directly negotiated with buyers.

That, however, only partly insulates it from the volatile spot price, which is primarily determined in China, the world’s largest converter of lithium raw materials into battery-grade material.

China’s first futures price came in the form of the Wuxi Stainless Steel Exchange, which launched a lithium carbonate contract in July 2021.

Wuxi immediately had an outsize influence on global pricing, although it was a problematic benchmark, based on spot physical trading of non-battery grade carbonate among a limited number of Chinese players. The relationship between Wuxi futures pricing and lithium reality was at best unclear.

Wuxi’s influence on Chinese and international prices has waned after the July 2023 launch of a lithium carbonate contract by the Guangzhou Futures Exchange (GFEX).

GFEX, though, has turned out to be just as wild a price indicator as Wuxi. A wave of speculative enthusiasm saw volumes on the new contract almost double between October and November with the exchange forced to hike margins, opens new tab and expand trading limits to cope with the volatility.

That hasn’t stopped GFEX from rapidly becoming the accepted reference point for lithium pricing, even though non-Chinese entities will struggle to access it.

Western companies looking for price management tools are currently limited to the CME’s lithium hydroxide contract, which has built up impressive momentum but remains small relative to its Chinese peer. CME open interest at the end of February was 22,275 metric tons, compared with 321,329 on the GFEX.

The London Metal Exchange’s lithium contract has failed to trade at all, while that listed with the Singapore Exchange traded just 18 lots last year and has notched up volumes of only 30 lots so far this year.

All Western futures contracts are settled against price assessments from Fastmarkets, which like fellow price reporting agency Benchmark Mineral Intelligence publishes an array of assessments intended to capture the complexity of the lithium supply chain.

A third way?

It’s not difficult to see why Albemarle is looking to find a third way between the wild eastern Chinese carbonate market and a Western hydroxide futures offering which rests on third-party price assessments.

Ironically, the only other hard pricing reference point looks set to disappear.

Pilbara Minerals has held regular auctions for its spodumene via the Battery Metals Exchange, generating a degree of price transparency at the upstream end of the production chain.

However, Australia’s largest independent miner has said it now has little uncommitted material left to sell, meaning future spot sales are “unlikely”.

Albemarle’s spodumene auction later this month will help fill the pricing gap, but it seems highly likely that more tenders of lithium in other forms will follow.

If there are enough of them, it may be possible for Metalshub to generate a price index based on the physical peer-to-peer transactions on its site.

Metalshub has built its trading platform around steel alloys such as manganese and chrome.

As with lithium, such metals tend not to come in standardised form and have historically not been exchange-traded but rather assessed by the likes of Fastmarkets.

Metalshub has changed that dynamic and is now working with the LME to open up a forum for the trading of low-carbon nickel with the ultimate goal of producing a transaction-based “green” nickel index, opens new tab to complement the LME’s standard Class I contract.

Such digitalization of markets “is becoming more relevant and Albemarle supports this development”, the company said in its alert to customers about the upcoming “bidding event”.

Desperately seeking stability

Global lithium mine production has mushroomed from 25,000 tons in 2010 to 180,000 tons last year, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The world needs a lot more of the stuff if it’s going to move away from the internal combustion engine to reduce global emissions.

But producers’ ability to finance and build new capacity has been undermined by a boom-bust pricing loop, with last year’s collapse being the latest downturn of the cycle.

To some extent this reflects the problems of aligning production with demand in a fast-evolving market. But the lack of a transparent benchmark price and limited ability to hedge price risk is not helping.

The lithium supply chain is maturing but the metal’s pricing seems trapped at the early development stage.

Albemarle should be credited for trying to change that problematic price paradox.

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, Andy Home, a columnist for Reuters.)

(Editing by Paul Simao)

Australia’s MinRes to develop lithium processing hub in Goldfields region

Reuters | March 17, 2024 

Lake Johnston primary mill. Credit: Poseidon Nickel

Australia’s Mineral Resources said on Monday it intends to develop a lithium processing hub in the Goldfields region of Western Australia after its buyout of Poseidon Nickel’s Lake Johnston nickel concentrator plant and mining rights.


Billionaire Chris Ellison who leads the diversified miner has been vocal about his plans to centrally process lithium ore mined in the region from third parties and from miners it has a stake in, in a “hub and spoke” model.

Australia ships out around half of the world’s supply of the battery raw material and the move is another step in the magnate’s plan to dominate the lithium sector where it already owns three hard rock mines.

“We intend to bring our expertise in spodumene production to Lake Johnston, which has the potential to service projects throughout the world’s most prospective region for lithium,” Ellison said in a statement.

MinRes will convert the existing nickel plant to be able process the lithium into spodumene concentrate. It has not disclosed the capital costs of the project.

Ellison has said that further processing in Australia such as the battery grade lithium hydroxide that Tianqi and Albemarle make was too expensive in current conditions.

It will pay A$1 million ($655,900) on execution of the acquisition agreement, A$6.5 million on completion of the deal and a further A$7.5 million, a year after the completion.

The move comes as the Australian government considers a tax credit for companies that build processing facilities to boost the value of green energy minerals and as nickel miners have put projects on ice due to low prices.

“He’ll either buy (spodumene) at the mine gate or toll it through the plant.. There will obviously be a number of different arrangements he can do with the juniors,” said analyst Glyn Lawcock of Barrenyjoey in Sydney.

Ellison will be able to “clip the ticket” several times, by charging for opportunities such as mining, crushing and transportation, Lawcock added.

Without a processing hub for third-party ores, much of the region’s material would not be viable to process, Ellison has said.

MinRes has stakes in developers in the region including Global Lithium and Delta Lithium. But it lost out in its bid to buy Azure Minerals, which has a flagship project in the Pilbara region, to fellow billionaire Gina Rinehart and Chile’s SQM late last year.

($1 = 1.5246 Australian dollars)

(By Melanie Burton and Ayushman Ojha; Editing by Chris Reese and Jamie Freed)