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Undergraduate Research and Mentoring Students Enrolled  
 
Nelsy  

Nelsy Carcamo

I have received my Associate’s degree in Laboratory Science and Technology (LST) at NTID and am continuing my Bachelor degree education in Environmental Science at RIT. Currently; I am involved in research with Professor Todd Pagano. From the research experience that I have gained, I would like to have a career in doing scientific research, though I may choose research more related to Environmental Science. I was born, and spent half of my life, in Honduras.  I hope to potentially return there in the future to use my research knowledge to improve the environmental conditions there.

 

The analysis of smoke particulate matter is being performed on different kinds of cigarettes. Cigarette smoke is generated using an in-house custom made smoking machine. Samples are collected on silicate filter pads and run through a detailed extraction procedure before being analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The analytes of interest are nine suspected carcinogens and EPA priority pollutants: nicotine, fluorene, anthracene, pyrene, benzo[a]anthracene, benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[k]fluoranthene, benzo[a]pyrene, and perylene. The major developments in this research are the optimization of the GC-MS instrumentation and extraction procedure involving solid phase extraction (SPE)-based techniques. Deuterated molecules of the carcinogens are used as internal surrogate standards and calibration curves are established in order to quantify concentrations in the collected smoke samples. Additional focus is on the chromatographic resolution of benzo[b]fluoranthene and benzo[k]fluoranthene using the GC-MS. This work will help researchers understand the deposition of carcinogens in the lungs that are resultant of the smoking process.


This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0829259. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).