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Yixiang Wang, Current Position/PhD Candidate and Desired Position/Postdoc in PM2.5 Toxicology
YIXIANG WANG, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Abstract Number: 607
Working Group: Meet the Job Seekers
Abstract
My name is Yixiang Wang, and I have seven years of experience in toxicology. During my master's period at Tsinghua University, I assessed the toxicity of nano TiO2 on marine microalgae (Phaeodactylum tricornutum). The results indicate that when particles don't express any oxidative potential (OP), and physical damage dominates the toxic mechanism, the algal cell population will be recovered with time. Currently, I am doing my Ph.D. in UIUC under the guidance of Vishal Verma. My topic is to use the mammalian cell line-based assays to understand the relationship between PM2.5 OP and cellular toxicity. In my first finished project, I provided the biological relevance to the chemical OP assays. We collected several PM2.5 samples from a campus site and tested the cytotoxicity, OP, and chemical composition. All chemical OP assays were correlated significantly with the cytotoxicity, but the •OH generation-based assays have higher correlations than antioxidant consumption assay. We hypothesized that the synergistic interactions among the organic compounds and metals on the ROS generation might account for better correlations. In my second project, I further tested the interactions of PM components on cytotoxicity. I concluded that while estimating the PM2.5 net toxicity, the interactions among different PM fractions can't be neglected. My third ongoing research is to explore the PM OP emission sources in the Midwest of the USA by a cellular OP assay. My research interest is to build the connection among the PM chemical composition, acellular OP assays, cellular OP assay, cytotoxicity, and epidemiological data. I expect that I will graduate from UIUC around June 2021. After graduation, I want to find a postdoc position in North America, China, or Europe.