Toxicity of Metal Mixtures

​Metals often exist in the environment as mixtures but current toxicity models fall short of predicting metal toxicity in the presence of other metals. The Biotic Ligand Model (BLM) predicts the bioavailability of metals under a large range of water chemistry conditions that occur in nature. However, the BLM falls short of predicting the bioavailability of metals in scenarios were other metals may also compete for the biotic ligand. The Vulpe lab is part of a project in collaboration with the Colorado School of Mines to investigate the potential protective effect of zinc on cadmium toxicity using life cycle toxicity testing of Daphnia magna and RNAseq genomics methods.