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John L. Hess
Professor Emeritus
Ph.D., Michigan State University
Postdoctorals - University of California, San Diego; Carnegie Institution of Washington; Stanford University
1060 Litton-Reaves
(540) 231-5336
Email
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| Additional Information |
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| Response of antioxidant metabolism to environmental and developmental factors |
As Associate Dean, I no longer maintain an active research laboratory. I continue to participate in graduate advisory committees and review manuscripts related to my research interests. I remain most curious and informed about how environmental factors, particularly oxidative stress and temperature, affect metabolism in higher organisms.
With higher plants our work focused on understanding how changes in the life cycle of a plant relates to the susceptibility of tissue to exposures of ambient gaseous pollutants, particularly ozone and sulfur dioxide. Variation in seasonal growth temperature and water are natural stimuli for inducing changes in the antioxidant cycle and permit evaluation of carbon and nitrogen partitioning among plant tissues. Tolerance to stress by specific cultivars correlates with regulation of multiple components of the antioxidant cycle.
In animals, cataract forms in response to various factors including age, disease, and radiation exposure. Increased oxidative stress characterizes each of these sources of damage to the eye. Hence, we quantified, in the rat lens, metabolic responses to oxidative stress. The model, on which we based much of this work, relied on cataract formation in lenses from young rats treated with sodium selenite. The model enabled careful evaluation of how metabolism and ion homeostasis contributed to normal lens function and responded to oxidative stress. |
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| Selected Publications |
Mitton, K. P., Hess, J. L., and Bunce, G. E. (1997) Free amino acids reflect impact of selenite-dependent stress on primary metabolism in rat lens. Curr. Eye Res. 16:997-1005. [Abstract] Hess, J. L., Mitton, K. P., and Bunce, G. E. (1996) Precataractous changes affect lens transparency in the selenite cataract. Ophthal. Res. [Abstract] Mitton, K. P., Hess, J. L., and Bunce, G. E. (1995) Causes of decreased phase transition temperature in selenite cataract model. Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci. 36: 914-924. [Abstract] Sheng, W. S., Chevone, B. I., and Hess, J. L. (1993) Photosynthetic inhibition and superoxide dismutase activity in soybean cultivars exposed to short-term ozone fumigations. Environ. Pollut. 80:45-52. [Abstract] Wang, Z., Hess, J. L., and Bunce, G. E. (1993) Calcium efflux in rat lens: Na/Ca exchange related to cataract induced by selenite. Curr. Eye Res. 12:213-218. [Abstract]
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