Seventh Annual Wyatt Symposium Features Nationally and Internationally Acclaimed Speakers

LEXINGTON, KY. (Oct. 1, 2014) -- Dr. Tomas Trnovec and Heather Henry, Ph.D., will be the featured lecturers at the John P. Wyatt Symposium on Environmental Health and Disease on Oct. 14.

Trnovec, a professor of environmental medicine at Slovak Medical University in Bratislava, Slovakia, will present "Exposure to Persistent Organic Pollutants Early in Life and Associated Disease Risks."

Trnovec, whose clinical research focuses on the associations between exposures to environmental toxicants and human health, has coordinated projects funded by entities in the US, the EU and, elsewhere that describe a range of relationships between exposure to organochlorines and health outcomes.

A health science administrator for the National Institute of Environmental Health Science (NIEHS), Henry will lecture on "Innovation in Environmental Health: New Tools and Approaches from the Superfund Research Program."

Henry oversees NIEHS Superfund Research Program grants that span human health toxicology, risk assessment, detection technologies and remediation approaches.

In addition to Trnovec and Henry, there will be other presentations on cardiovascular effects of secondhand smoke in children, radon and secondhand smoke for renters, and new frontiers in melanoma prevention.

The symposium is supported by the Dr. John P. Wyatt Traveling Fellowship, awarded biennially to researchers at the University of Kentucky for the purpose of studying and disseminating information related to environmentally-caused diseases, a research area of notable strength at UK. The awardees this year are Drs. Andrew Morris, Bernhard Hennig and Kevin Pearson who hold appointments in the Colleges of Medicine and Agriculture, Food and Environment, and are members of the University of Kentucky Superfund Research Center and The Center for Research on Environmental Diseases.  The broad purpose of their research programs is to promote healthier lives through better understanding of environmental impacts.

The fellowship was named for Dr. John P. Wyatt, director of the University of Kentucky Tobacco and Health Research Institute from 1974 until January 1980. Wyatt was a pathologist who received his M.D. from the University of Manitoba in 1938 and completed his medical training on a fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Before coming to the University of Kentucky in 1974, he was professor and head of the departments of pathology at the University of Manitoba and at St. Louis University, where he was involved in black lung research. Wyatt, whose primary research interest was in pulmonary disease, published more than 100 articles about viruses and other lung injuries during his career. 

The symposium is free and open to all members of the university community and will be held at the William T. Young Library Auditorium and Gallery. A poster session and breakfast begins at 8 a.m.  Opening remarks by Lisa A. Cassis, Ph.D., UK interim vice president for research, begin at 8:30 a.m.  For more information or to register, go to http://go.uky.edu/wyatt to register for this event.