Atmospheric pollution – how does it harm our health?

Clean carbon member, Dr Matt Loxham's research has, to date, focused on particulate matter in underground railway systems, in collaboration with Prof Flemming Cassee at the Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu in the Netherlands. Compared to the outdoor environment, this dust is very rich in metals, which are thought to be one of the most toxic components of air pollution. This, combined with the high level of dust underground because of poor ventilation, and the number of people using underground systems regularly, means there is a potential for large numbers of people to be affected. However, he is hoping to use Southampton’s strong links with the maritime and shipping industry to begin to investigate the composition and possible health effects of emissions from ships, which is thought to be a major contributing factor in pollution-related deaths in coastal cities, especially in northern Europe and southeast Asia.

There are a several other questions which remain unanswered, because we don’t fully understand how air pollution causes its effects. How might the effects of exposure over the entirety of life, and even before birth, compare to just a few hours of exposure? What might the effects be on other diseases such as dementia and diabetes? How can we improve the monitoring of people’s exposure to pollution? Answering these questions requires expertise from a wide variety of disciplines. Matt Loxham is supervised by Professor Donna Davies, and currently based in the Faculty of Medicine, where cells from the airway lining can be grown and then exposed to particulate matter samples. This allows the  observation of a variety of responses, such as cell death, inflammatory mediator release, and production of antioxidants. Other researchers involved: Prof Martin Palmer, Prof Damon Teagle, and Dr Matt Cooper in Ocean and Earth Science, analyse the chemical composition of the particles, so that their composition can be linked to their effects on cells. Matt has an on-going project with Dr Christopher Woelk, a bioinformatician whose input allows the screening of a huge range of cellular responses to particles which would otherwise be completely unfeasible. He is also working to develop links with statisticians, engineers, and computer scientists so that the questions can be tackled in a more holistic, and ultimately more effective, manner.