Advaitha Madireddy, PhD

Join us for a seminar by Dr. Advaitha Madireddy, Assistant Professor of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey.

Title: Dietary Genotoxicants and Genetic Susceptibility: Synthetic Azo Food Dyes as an Unrecognized Environmental Risk in DNA Repair–Deficient Individuals

Location: KRB 253

Time: 3:00pm-4:00pm

Abstract

Synthetic azo food dyes are found in over 90% of children’s candies and beverages sold in the United States, yet their permitted intake limits rest on limited genotoxicity testing. Dr. Madireddy’s work asks how these everyday dietary exposures interact with inherited defects in DNA repair, using Fanconi anemia as a model of heightened susceptibility. In patient cells, and mouse models, Red 40 and Sunset Yellow, and the aromatic amine metabolite generated by their reduction in vivo, drive replication stress, oxidative and mitochondrial damage, and chromosomal instability at fragile genomic regions. This talk will make the case for synthetic food dyes as an overlooked environmental genotoxicant, and for genetic background as a determinant of who is most at risk.