Robert Johnson, MPhil, left, and Julio Landero, PhD, work together in Dr. Landero’s trace metals lab at Mount Sinai, where Mr. Johnson is learning specialized techniques to help improve public health in Ghana.
Robert Johnson, MPhil, an environmental scientist from Ghana, and Julio Landero, PhD, a chemist at Mount Sinai, each nod enthusiastically as the other describes how collaboration is essential to their shared passion: understanding how the tiniest chemical particles affect the health of whole human populations.
Through the Arnhold Institute for Global Health’s Ghana Partnership, Mr. Johnson came to New York in October to learn about Dr. Landero’s lab, which is one of the most advanced in the world at detecting trace amounts of metals in biological samples. Dr. Landero, Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, works with environmental researchers to understand how these metals might affect human health, and he sees great value in working across disciplines and continents, especially in places where labs like his do not exist.
Collaboration Is Key for High-Quality Environmental Science
“In Africa, there are few or no studies with enough human samples to study the effect of metals on people, especially trace metals,” Dr. Landero explained. Setting up a chemistry lab like his takes immense resources, he continued, describing the precision and high level of technical expertise—not to mention the specialized equipment and infrastructure—that it takes.
But collaboration is key, he emphasized, adding that, “There are unbelievable gaps and disconnects between people doing fundamental chemistry and people who have the samples and the knowledge of the problems.”
Illustrating Dr. Landero’s point, Mr. Johnson related that he first became interested in environmental toxins while working for an agricultural company in Ghana, when he saw the chemical fertilizers the farmers used.
“I was beginning to wonder how these substances were affecting the population, and I didn’t have a platform to explore these things,” he explained.
Hoping to make a difference for people exposed to these chemicals, he went to work for the Ghana Health Service at the Navrongo Health Research Centre (NHRC), which has a longstanding partnership with Arnhold Institute researchers. Soon, through an educational exchange set up by the Institute’s Ghana Partnership, he had the opportunity to come to New York to learn from Dr. Landero.
Mr. Johnson acknowledges the tough learning curve to understand the procedures and equipment in the trace metals lab.
“In the lab here, things are very hands-on, and the quality control methods are really top notch,” he said. He emphasized the precision it takes to ensure scientists are getting accurate results from the lab equipment. Dr. Landero concurred: “You need training and experience, or it’s very easy to get the wrong answer.”
Real Solutions That Help People
Mr. Johnson knows that many methods available to Dr. Landero are beyond the capability of his lab at NHRC, but he has nonetheless taken away important principles to implement to improve the accuracy of his work in Ghana. For example, he has learned sample collection and storage methods that reduce the chances of contamination, so that he can prepare samples to ship to Dr. Landero’s lab for analysis as part of the ongoing collaboration between the Ghana Health Service and Mount Sinai.
The pair agrees that knowledge and resource exchanges like this one will make a difference for people in Ghana and around the world.
Mr. Johnson emphasizes that understanding the impact of trace metals at the molecular level can be very useful, even critical to public health. Citing research published out of Dr. Landero’s lab on how copper is related to the growth and aggressiveness of cancer cells, Mr. Johnson said, “These are practical things, and they make the work they do here very exciting. In the lab we’re talking about ions and all that, but at the end of the day, we get to see real solutions that impact real human beings.”
Alexandra Coria, MD, is the Senior Technical Communications and Research Translation Specialist for the Arnhold Institute for Global Health and an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Global Health and Health System Design at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.