Ominous Nano Findings Win a NIOSH Award
Among the 2010 winners and honorable mentions for the Alice Hamilton Award announced Wednesday is a paper published last month in Toxicology that found mice exposed to multi-walled carbon nanotubes quickly suffered lung damage.
A significant paper about nanotube exposure risks that was produced by researchers from NIOSH, West Virginia University, and Shinshu University in Nagano, Japan, is one of the 2010 winners of NIOSH's Alice Hamilton Award. The agency on Wednesday announced winners of that award, which is given for scientific excellence of technical and instructional materials by NIOSH scientists and engineers; the James P. Keogh Award, for outstanding service by an individual working in occupational safety and health; and the Bullard-Sherwood Research-to-Practice Award, for exceptional efforts by NIOSH researchers and partners in applying OSH research to the prevention of workplace fatalities, illnesses, or injuries. These are annual awards. A new NIOSH award, the Director's Award for Extraordinary Intramural Science, was added this year.
Dale W. Porter, Ann F. Hubbs, Robert R. Mercer, Nianqiang Wu, Michael G. Wolfarth, Krishnan Sriram, Stephen Leonard, Lori Battelli, Diane Schwegler-Berry, Sherry Friend, Michael Andrew, Bean T. Chen, Shuji Tsuruoka, Morinobu Endo, and Vincent Castranova are the listed authors of the nanotube paper, which won in the Biological Sciences category. The Hamilton Award in the Human Studies category went to authors of a paper in Ergonomics that helped fall harness manufacturers design harnesses more appropriately sized for women to wear; the Engineering and Physical Sciences category winners' paper, published in Human Factors, also concerned fall harness sizing and design. The full list of the Hamilton Award recipients can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/awards/hamilton/
James W. Collins, associate director of Science in the NIOSH Division of Safety Research and a captain in the U.S. Public Health Service, is the 2010 Keogh winner. NIOSH said his research has enabled NIOSH to become a national and international leader "in developing, testing, and disseminating recommendations and technical guidance for preventing slip, trip, fall, and patient-lifting injuries in healthcare settings." More information is available at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/awards/keogh/
The Bullard-Sherwood Research-to-Practice Award, named for the inventor of the hard hat (Edward W. Bullard) and personal industrial hygiene sampling pump (R. Jeremy Sherwood) recognizes outstanding contributions in knowledge, interventions, and technology. This year's honorees are projects addressing worker injury prevention in highway work zones, preventing coal workers' black lung disease, inerting explosive mine gases, hearing protection for agricultural workers, and preventing carbon monoxide poisoning. Visit http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/awards/bullard-sherwood/ for information.
The Director's Awards went to the late Paul Baron, a career NIOSH scientist who was a recognized pioneer and international leader in aerosol measurement and occupational aerosol sampling (Distinguished Career Scientist); Jennifer Lincoln, a nationally recognized NIOSH leader in research to prevent work-related deaths and injuries in commercial fishing (Early Career Scientist); and Douglas Cantis of the NIOSH Division of Safety Research (Scientific Support).