Xin Hu’s study of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) has not gone unnoticed outside her laboratory at The University of Iowa.

Hu, a Ph.D. candidate in human toxicology who works in Professor Peter Thorne’s lab, received the Best Poster Award at the 22nd annual meeting of the Superfund Research Program at Columbia University in New York in 2010. Her poster was titled “Time course of PCB congener uptake and elimination in rat tissue after inhalation exposure to PCB mixtures.”

After completing her undergraduate work in environmental engineering at Tsinghua University in China, Hu came to the UI in 2007 and is studying the potential toxicity caused by inhalation of airborne toxicants, especially PCBs. Although the toxicity of PCBs has been extensively reported, very few studies have investigated the health effects from inhalation exposure.

“I found the interdisciplinary environment here most intriguing,” Hu said. “It is exciting that our program has space for a wide range of interests.”