Research Highlights

Dr. Alesia Ferguson Chamber Experiments (Lab Work)

Project Title: Experimentally Measuring Adhesion to the Human Skin

 I have collaborated with Dr. Wayne Johnson of Savannah State University to design and build a computerized, mechanical chamber to investigate the adherence of soils and chemicals to the human skin. This engineering application has resulted in the publication of 5 articles and numerous presentations on the chamber and resulting results (over 768 experiments) on soil and play sand obtained by using this chamber. I also collaborated with Dr. Zoran Bursac to apply statistical strategies to tease out variances and influences. The adherence measures from this novel chamber provided crucial parameters used to estimate exposure and dose to chemicals. The use of human cadaver skin provided better representation of actual human contact.

I was invited to present my chamber and its generation of data at the International Symposium on Industrial Pharmaceutics and Clinical Pharmacology in Guangzhou, China (October 10^th-11^th). New studies have since been conducted with clays adhering to human skin for dioxin exposure of clay artisans.  These results were recently presented at the ASTM symposium in San Antonio (Fall 2010). We are hoping to expand the work to experimentally measuring surface residue transfer coefficients (i.e., percent transfer on contact) necessary for understanding and quantifying dermal exposure to toxic compounds (e.g., pesticides) in the home and at work.  Reverse Phase High Performance Liquid Chromatography (RPHPLC) coupled with an Ultra Violet detector is currently being used to construct standards curves to aid in the identification of unknown masses of our pesticides after the residue transfer experiments. 

Figure 1: Sketch of Mechanical Chamber

Figure 2: Skin harvested from cadavers for use in experiments