Dr. Graziano has been a faculty member at the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University since 1979, and was Chairman of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the School of Public Health from 1991-2002, when he became Associate Dean. Prior to that, he served on the faculties of The Rockefeller University and Cornell University Medical College. He was the founding director of Columbia University=s NIEHS Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan, whose central theme stresses understanding and preventing environmental components of disease in underprivileged populations. He is widely known as an expert on childhood lead poisoning, and his laboratory developed the drug (Succimer) that is now widely used to treat this condition. In addition, from 1983-1998, he was the principal investigator of a 15-year NIEHS-funded prospective study of childhood lead poisoning, carried out in the mining town of Kosovska Mitrovica, Yugoslavia.

In 2000, Dr. Graziano became the founding director of the Columbia University Superfund Basic Research Program (SBRP), entitled AHealth Effects and Geochemistry of Arsenic and Lead.@ This multidisciplinary program, which is primarily devoted to the issue of arsenic in drinking water, and the bioavailability of Pb. His seminar will be based on work carried out under the SBRP. The Columbia SBRP involves faculty from four schools of Columbia University, and includes geochemistry, hydrology and remediation research at four U.S. Superfund sites, as well as studies of arsenic metabolism and toxicity in families exposed to naturally occurring high concentrations of arsenic in drinking water in Bangladesh.

Dr. Graziano received his B.S. degree in Biology from Long Island University (1967), and his Ph.D. degree in Physiology from Rutgers University (1971). He has previously served as a toxicology consultant to the World Health Organization and the World Bank, and has received numerous awards for his research. In 2002, he was voted Teacher of the Year at the Mailman School of Public Health.

Selected Recent Publications:

Maddaloni, M, LoIacono, N, Manton, W, Blum, C, Drexler, J, Graziano, JH: Bioavailability of soil-borne lead in adults, by stable isotope dilution. Environ Health Perspect,106: 1589-1594, 1998.

Factor-Litvak, P, Wasserman, G, Kline, JK, Graziano, J: The Yugoslavia prospective study of environmental lead exposure. Environ Health Perspect 107: 9-15, 1999.

Wasserman, GA, Musabegovic, A, Liu, X, Kline, J, Factor-Litvak, P, Graziano, JH: Lead exposure and motor functioning in 4.5 year old children: The Yugoslavia prospective study. J Pediatrics 137(4): 555-61, 2000.

Wasserman, GA, Liu, X, Popovac, D, Factor-Litvak, P, Kline, F, Waternaux, C, LoIacono, N, Graziano, JH: The Yugoslavia prospective lead study: Contribution of prenatal and postnatal lead exposure to early intelligence. Neurotoxicol Teratol 22(6):811-8, 2000.

Ahsan, H, Rahman, A, Perrin, M, Stute, M, Hasnat, A, van Geen, A, Graziano, JH: Associations between water arsenic, urinary arsenic, and skin lesions in Bangladesh. J Occup & Enviro Med 42: 1195-1201, 2000.

Lin, E, Graziano, JH, Freyer, G: Regulation of the iron-sulfur subunits of mitochondrial complex I. J Biol Chem 276: 27685-27692, 2001.

Van Geen, A, Horneman, A, Dhar, R, Zheng, Y, Stute, M, Simpson, HJ, Wallace, S, Small, C, Ahsan, H, Parvez, F, Slavkovic, V, LoIacono, N, Gelman, A, Becker, M, Hussein, I, Momotaj, H, Ahmed, KM, Graziano, JH: Well-switching in Bangladesh: A possible solution to the arsenic crisis? Bull World Health Org 80: 732-737, 2002.

Wasserman, G, Factor-Litvak, P, Liu, X, Todd, AC, Kline, J, Slavkovich, V, Popovac, D, Graziano, JH: The relationship between blood lead, bone lead and child intelligence. Child Neuropsychol, in press, 2002.

Factor-Litvak, P, Hasselgren, G, Jacobs, D, Begg, M, Kline, J, Geier, J, Mervish, N, Schoenholz, S, Graziano, J. Mercury derived from dental amalgams and neuropsychological function. In press, Environ Health Perspect, 2003.

Ahsan, M, Chen, Y, Wang, Q, Slavkovich, V, Graziano, JH, Santella, RM: DNA repair gene XPD and susceptibility to arsenic-induced hyperkeratosis. Toxicol Letters, in press, 2003.

van Geen, A, Zheng, Y, Versteeg, R, Stute, M, Horneman, A, Dhar, R, Steckler, M, Gelman, A, Small, C, Ahsan, H, Graziano, J, Hussein, I, Ahmed, KM: Spatial variability of arsenic in 6000 contiguous tube wells in Araihazar, Bangladesh. In press, Water Resources Research, 2003.