Nutritional Toxicology is the study of naturally occurring toxins in the food chain and their metabolism. Currently, this laboratory is focusing on two toxins produced by fungi (mycotoxins): the carcinogenic, anti-nutritive, immunosuppressant aflatoxins and the powerful environmental estrogens related to zearalenone. Other nutritional toxicants investigated by this group include canavanine, urushiol, cadmium, taxanes, the maple toxins, toxic fatty acid imbalances in the black rhino, diaminobutanoic acid derivatives, ascaridole, copper, sesbania saponins, methyl xanthines and monensin.|This Limited Resource Animal Agriculture program includes both smallholder systems in developing countries (such as Ethiopia, Kenya and Haiti) as well as the US. Currently, this investigator`s interest is in removing barriers to delivery of vitamin B12 to young children through animal source foods, but has also addressed the use and preservation of crop byproducts, the control of body nutrient reserves and total production system optimization.

The current focus is the education of a diverse audience in the necessity for and the nature of sustainable, productive relationships between humans and domestic animal species. To this end, I taught three courses of my own in 2007: The Animals That Sustain Us (lecture) ANSC 110, The Animals That Sustain Us (lab) ANSC 111, Sustainable Animal Agriculture (Summer Session ANSC 112) and helped out with a few lectures in Animal Nutrition (ANSC 212), Introductory Animal Biology, ANSC 150 and an internationally oriented Vet College course (VM615).