Environmental Toxicology Laboratory and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in a joint project, have discovered that the swimming pattern produced by the 10 micron diameter flagellate, Tetramitus rostratus is extremely sensitive, in a dose-dependant way, to compounds which influence flagellar motor activity, including heavy metals, endotoxins, ion channel blockers, and a variety of other noxious compounds. One of the key components of this project was to develop a real-time method for tracking individual cells within a population, quantify motion characteristics such as displacement, velocity, speed, and bearing and then use those characteristics to designate normal cells from those that had been affected by a toxin.

The result is a sensitive, rapid assay for biologically active admixtures and individual toxins which could not be detected by conventional means. This collaborative effort has lead to a joint grant application in response to a Department of Defense request for new anti-terrorism technologies.

Environmental Toxicology Laboratory in cooperation with Trout Unlimited, Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition and New York Water Watch, has completed a study describing particle and whole water toxicity in the streams and tributaries of the Croton Watershed. These water bodies feed into the Croton, Muscoot and Kensico reservoirs sources of drinking water for New York City, Westchester and Putnam County.

Performance of the Tetramitus Assay during this study revealed, as was the case for the Long Island Drinking Water studies, a high level of statistical reliability. New observations included data describing toxicity masking effects by sediment containing particles above 20µ, changes in particle densities particle concentration per mg sediment in samples taken under different rainfall conditions, and different particle toxicity to sediment concentration relationships under different rainfall conditions.