Overall Research Efforts
Responses of living organisms to threats represent a set of complex interactions that build upon the current state of health, previous history, and additional environmental influences which ultimately form a dynamic system of overall susceptibility. It embodies the joint reactions of a living system to a multitude of influences, all of which are a result of a process of adaptation/survival over time. Susceptibility is not just a phenomenon of individual variation, but of populations which share common activities such as working in the same office building or soldiers in the same platoon. The overall research efforts of my group encompass many facets of susceptibility, but specifically we seek to understand the dynamic mechanisms associated with biochemical response to insults. The complex relationship of toxicity and susceptibility is illustrated below.
