A statewide initiative to put more healthy, climate-friendly grains on people鈥檚 plates has received a $19 million boost, which will sustain every step in building a network from the field to the fork.

The initiative, a public-private partnership led by Washington State University with support from the 91探花, received a $10 million BioInnovation Grant from the and matching funds from several other organizations, including more than $3 million from the Washington Grain Commission.

It targets a global health problem: the lack of whole grains in people鈥檚 diets, which contributes to widespread health problems.

The funding will allow WSU researchers to continue developing new crop varieties for farmers. It will fuel efforts to bring more whole grains to the public, including into school lunchrooms and will expand Washington state鈥檚 commercial infrastructure for storing, transporting, milling and marketing whole grains. The funding will also support the establishment of a commercial kitchen at the 91探花to help entrepreneurs bring whole-grain foods to market.

鈥淭his work is about making sure that nutritious grains reach the people who need them,鈥� said , a professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the UW. 鈥淏y understanding the policies, systems, and human decisions that shape food production and the supply chain for school meals, we can help bridge the gap between innovation and impact.鈥�

Two teams of 91探花researchers will contribute to this effort.聽

, professor of industrial & systems engineering and of mechanical engineering at the UW, will help lead development of ready-to-eat meals and will support private organizations using 91探花facilities to produce sample meals for school breakfast and lunch.聽

The UW鈥檚 implementation science team, which includes Otten, assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences , and assistant professor of epidemiology , will examine how innovations in grain breeding and food product development can be successfully adopted in school settings. They will study what policy, budgetary, and social factors help ensure that new whole grain and legume varieties are embraced across the supply chain and, ultimately, by school-aged children who rely on them for the nutrition they need to grow and thrive.

This team will also lead study-away programs, where students can learn about new whole grains and legumes in both urban and rural areas of Washington state. Curriculum from these five-week summer programs will be made publicly available.聽

鈥淭he timing of the grant is perfect,鈥� said , a WSU professor of international seed and cropping systems and director of the WSU Breadlab, who will lead the grant work. 鈥淲e鈥檙e right at the stage where we鈥檝e got a critical mass of cross-disciplinary research, encompassing a range of agricultural, food and health sciences. Now we can start commercializing, getting these crop varieties to farmers, getting whole grains on our plates and into schools.鈥�

The grant funding will be matched by contributions from the Washington Grain Commission, the USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council, the American Heart Association, The Land Institute, and food and technology companies.

鈥淭his is truly a historic investment for Washington farmers,鈥� said Casey Chumrau, CEO of the Washington Grain Commission.

Adapted from . For more information or to reach the project team, contact Alden Woods at acwoods@uw.edu or WSU鈥檚 Shawn Vestal at shawn.vestal@wsu.edu.

Every fall more than half of the coho salmon that return to Puget Sound’s urban streams die before they can spawn. In some streams, all of them die. But scientists didn’t know why.

Now a team led by researchers at the 91探花 Tacoma, 91探花and Washington State University Puyallup have discovered the answer. When it rains, stormwater flushes bits of aging vehicle tires on roads into neighboring streams. The killer is in the mix of chemicals that leach from tire wear particles: a molecule related to a preservative that keeps tires from breaking down too quickly.

This research Dec. 3 in Science.

“Most people think that we know what chemicals are toxic and all we have to do is control the amount of those chemicals to make sure water quality is fine. But, in fact, animals are exposed to this giant chemical soup and we don’t know what many of the chemicals in it even are,” said co-senior author , an associate professor in both the 91探花Tacoma Division of Sciences & Mathematics and the 91探花Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.

“Here we started with a mix of 2,000 chemicals and were able to get all the way down to this one highly toxic chemical, something that kills large fish quickly and we think is probably found on every single busy road in the world.”

are born in freshwater streams. After spending the first year of their lives there, these fish make the epic journey out to sea where they live out most of their adult lives. A few 鈥� 鈥� return to their original streams to lay their eggs, or spawn, before dying. But researchers started noticing that, especially after a big rain, returning salmon were dying before they could spawn. The search for the coho-killer started with investigating the water quality of the creeks, a multi-agency effort led by NOAA-Fisheries and including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, King County, Seattle Public Utilities and the Wild Fish Conservancy.

“We had determined it couldn’t be explained by high temperatures, low dissolved oxygen or any known contaminant, such as high zinc levels,” said co-senior author , an assistant professor at WSU’s School of the Environment, based in Puyallup. “Then we found that urban stormwater runoff could recreate the symptoms and the acute mortality. That’s when Ed’s group reached out to see if they could help us understand what was going on chemically.”

First the team narrowed down what in stormwater runoff could be behind the symptoms. All creek samples contained a chemical signature associated with tire wear particles. In addition, a study led by McIntyre found that a solution made from tire wear particles was highly toxic to salmon.

But tire wear particles are a mixture of hundreds of different chemicals, so the team had a challenge ahead: How to find the culprit?

The researchers started by sectioning the tire wear particle solution according to different chemical properties, such as removing all metals from the solution. Then they tested the different solutions to see which ones were still toxic to salmon in the lab. They repeated this process until only a few chemicals remained, including one that appeared to dominate the mixture but didn’t match anything known.

Researchers used a multi-step chemical separation process to narrow down the list of possible salmon-killing culprits from thousands of chemicals to one. This animation, which shows different chemicals (dots) being separated based on a chemical commonality, is a simplified illustration of that process. Rebecca Gourley/91探花

“There were periods last year when we thought we might not be able to get this identified. We knew that the chemical that we thought was toxic had 18 carbons, 22 hydrogens, two nitrogens and two oxygens. And we kept trying to figure out what it was,” said lead author , a research scientist at the at 91探花Tacoma. “Then one day in December, it was just like bing! in my mind. The killer chemical might not be a chemical directly added to the tire, but something related.”

Tian searched a list of chemicals known to be in tire rubber for anything that might be similar to their unknown 鈥� give or take a few hydrogens, oxygens or nitrogens 鈥斅� and found something called 6PPD, which is used to keep tires from breaking down too quickly.

“It’s like a preservative for tires,” Tian said. “Similar to how food preservatives keep food from spoiling too quickly, 6PPD helps tires last by protecting them from ground-level ozone.”

Ozone, a gas created when pollutants emitted by cars and other chemical sources react in the sunlight, breaks the bonds holding the tire together. 6PPD helps by reacting with ozone before it can react with the tire rubber, sparing the tires.

But when 6PPD reacts with ozone, the researchers found that it was transformed into multiple chemicals, including 6PPD-quinone (pronounced “kwih-known”), the toxic chemical that is responsible for killing the salmon.

This chemical is not limited to the Puget Sound region. The team also tested roadway runoff from Los Angeles and urban creeks near San Francisco, and 6PPD-quinone was present there as well. This finding is unsurprising, the researchers said, because 6PPD appears to be used in all tires and tire wear particles are likely present in creeks near busy roads across the world.

Now that 6PPD-quinone has been identified as the “smoking gun” behind coho death in freshwater streams, the team can start to understand why this chemical is so toxic.

“How does this quinone lead to toxicity in coho? Why are other species of salmon, such as chum salmon, so much less sensitive?” McIntyre asked. “We have a lot to learn about which other species are sensitive to stormwater or 6PPD-quinone within, as well as outside, of the Puget Sound region.”

One way to protect salmon and other creatures living in the creeks is to treat stormwater before it hits the creeks. But, while tests have shown that there are effective environmentally friendly stormwater technologies for removing 6PPD-quinone, it would be almost impossible to build a treatment system for every road, the team added.

Another option is to change the composition of the tires themselves to make them “salmon-safe.”

“Tires need these preservative chemicals to make them last,” Kolodziej said. “It’s just a question of which chemicals are a good fit for that and then carefully evaluating their safety for humans, aquatic organisms, etc. We’re not sure what alternative chemical we would recommend, but we do know that chemists are really smart and have many tools in their toolboxes to figure out a safer chemical alternative.”

Additional co-authors are , a postdoctoral research associate at the National Institute of Standards and Technology who completed this work at the Center for Urban Waters; , and at WSU Puyallup; , , and at 91探花Tacoma; , , , and at the University of Toronto Scarborough; at the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project; Fan Hou, a doctoral student at China Agricultural University who completed this research at the UW; , Ximin Hu, and at the UW; , a postdoctoral research fellow at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who completed this research at the Center for Urban Waters; and at San Francisco Estuary Institute; at NOAA; and at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington State Governors Funds and the Regional Monitoring Program for Water Quality in San Francisco Bay.

For more information, contact Kolodziej at koloj@uw.edu, McIntyre at jen.mcintyre@wsu.edu and Tian at tianzy@uw.edu.

Grant numbers: NSF: 1608464 and 1803240, EPA: #01J18101 and #DW-014-92437301

Public higher education is not just possible, it is easily within reach for Washington residents. That鈥檚 the message behind a new joint of the 91探花 and Washington State University to promote the affordability of higher education in the state of Washington.

The two rivals are coming together to spread the word about the importance and value of a higher education.

The 鈥淵es, It鈥檚 Possible,鈥� campaign debuts Monday 鈥� kicking off Apple Cup week 鈥� with a string of joint activities designed to raise awareness of the access to higher education in the state. Scheduled to continue through spring, the effort features a digital marketing campaign and other targeted advertising aimed at potential college students.

鈥淪tudents and their families read these headlines about the massive debt load that students are under and the exorbitant cost of getting a bachelor鈥檚 degree, and we鈥檙e concerned that they might be making decisions based on that when, in fact, our public institutions in the state of Washington are doing a fabulous job of keeping it affordable,鈥� said 91探花President Ana Mari Cauce. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the notion of, 鈥榊es, it鈥檚 possible.鈥� We want them to know that if they want to go to college in our state, in our public universities and community colleges, it is possible for them to go to school and it doesn鈥檛 take crippling debt loads.鈥�

Higher education is the surest path to mobility, opportunity and a better life, university officials said. Regardless of background, interest or hometown, there鈥檚 a clear path to a quality higher education in Washington. Higher education pays dividends by providing access to healthier, more rewarding lives, as well as increased participation in communities and a chance to provide for families.

鈥淲e compete on Friday, but we鈥檙e both working hard to try and make sure that Washington kids have a great opportunity to access higher education,鈥� said WSU President Kirk Schulz. 鈥淭he Apple Cup presents a great time for us to be talking about some of the things our universities are doing together. There are myths that float around about students not being able to attend college, and we want to be able to talk to them about how higher education is achievable.鈥�

Statistics show student loan debts in the state of Washington are not as large as many might think. Nearly half (48 percent) of the Class of 2017 that graduated from a Washington baccalaureate-granting institution left with no student loan debt, and Washington ranks second in the nation in need-based grant aid per undergrad student (behind New Jersey by $6 per student). Of those who did graduate with debt across the state, it was less than $24,000, on average, and the three-year student-loan default rate for graduates from Washington鈥檚 four-year universities is 4.7 percent, compared to the national average of 11.5 percent.

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CONTACTS:

Victor Balta, senior director of media relations, 91探花
(206) 543-2580 / balta@uw.edu

Phil Weiler, vice president for marketing and communications, Washington State University
(509) 335-1221 / phil.weiler@wsu.edu