Mizzou student Joseph Beeman of Nevada gets a head start on research.
In his senior year at MU, Joseph Beeman studied xenoestrogens, or environmental estrogens.
“Environmental estrogens are chemicals in the environment and in industry that behave like hormonal estrogen,” he says. “We try to identify these estrogens in the environment and predict what they’re going to do to someone’s body so that they can be effectively used or avoided.”
Examples of xenoestrogens include bisphenol-A, a chemical found in some plastics that is purported to cause brain and reproductive problems in fetuses, infants and children who have been exposed; tamoxifen, a breast cancer drug that helps block cancer cell growth; and resveratrol, an antioxidant found in red wine that is being studied to determine its disease prevention potential.
Reviewed 2013-02-18