Infrastructure for Delivering and Characterizing Airborne Exposures in Exposure Chambers

A.  Concentrated Ambient Particles System (CAPS)

My team has developed a Concentrated Ambient Particles System (CAPS) based on the Sioutas concentrator, which will be one of the few available in vivo exposure systems in the US that allows investigation of the health effects of environmental exposure to ambient air pollution in animal models. We have validated this exposure model using a previous version of this system in numerous publications, which have fundamentally shaped the understanding of the effects of PM2.5 and its association with metabolic syndrome and hypertension. 

B.  Whole-body Exposure Chamber

Whole-body Exposure Chamber: My team has constructed a modular whole body mouse exposure chamber for studying the effects of complex mixtures of gases and PM. The cages can accommodate 10 mice each and up to 6 cages are available for humanely delivering exposures at any given time (CH Technologies, Inc.) Aerosols can be generated using single- or 6-jet Collison nebulizers where the PM can be suspended in a liquid medium and then aerosolized, or using a Wright Dust Feeder (WDF-II, CH Technologies Inc.) for aerosolizing dry powders, or nano-powders (Palas). A LabFlow Controller can control air flow through the chamber and cages and also the aerosol monitoring instrumentation. Aerosol exposures are monitored using a DustTrak for PM1.0 and PM2.5, a Partector for surface area concentration, and a P-Trak for number concentration.