University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Published: November 3, 2005

By JESSICA KELTZ
Reporter Contributor

As an epidemiologist, Matthew Bonner thinks it's the prerogative of his field to explore the science of what causes disease, as well as work toward public health-oriented goals.

New UB faculty member Matthew Bonner studies why some people are more susceptible to cancer-causing environmental pollutants, such as radon, pesticides and the smoke from burning coal.
PHOTO: NANCY J. PARISI

"There's a debate going on in (the field of) epidemiology right now," explains Bonner, who joined the faculty of the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine in the School of Public Health and Health Professions this semester. "Should we be doing things that only have public health ramifications...as opposed to having a better understanding as to how exposures in general cause disease in humans?

"The way I think about it," he continues, "is that you want both. But I'm more comfortable on the science side of it."

While Bonner may conduct purely scientific inquiries, it's easy to see how his work could have wider implications. He studies why some people are more vulnerable than others to cancer-causing pollutants, such as radon, pesticides and the smoke from burning coal.

"Most of my work to date has been looking at environmental pollutants, such as air pollution, residential radon, indoor air pollution, and looking for genetic susceptibility to those pollutants," he says.

For his doctoral dissertation—which he completed at UB—Bonner studied ambient air pollution in Erie and Niagara counties going back to the 1950s, and contrasted that data with rates of breast cancer in the area.

He and a colleague now plan to look into the link between air pollution and myocardial infarctions, commonly known as heart attacks. Bonner explains that when air pollution data is contrasted with hospital admissions for heart attacks, the rate of heart attacks seems to go up a few days after air pollution has peaked.

"There's pretty good evidence that air pollution is a trigger," he says.

Before joining the UB faculty this August, Bonner spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute. At NCI, he says, researchers were studying a region in China where people use a specific kind of coal to heat their homes that produces a type of pollutant called polycyclic hydrocarbons. There, rates of lung cancer far exceed those of nearby towns that have similar demographic characteristics and rates of smoking. In those nearby towns, people heat their homes with smokeless coal.

Even though Bonner earned his doctorate from the UB School of Public Health and Health Professions and his wife is from the Buffalo area, it didn't immediately occur to him when he started to look for a job as a university professor that he might end up right back on the South Campus.

"I had been strategizing about the direction my career should take, and after about a year and a half, I evaluated my postdoc and realized I'd accomplished the goals I wanted," he recalls. At that point, he contacted his dissertation advisor who, to his surprise, told him there might be an opening at UB. The former School of Health Related Professions had been reorganized and renamed the School of Public Health and Health Professions when Bonner defended his dissertation two years ago—before the reorganization, the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine had resided in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

"It does feel a little awkward to come back to the place you were educated," he says. But Bonner adds that with the School of Public Health and Health Professions getting off the ground around the same time that President John B. Simpson began working toward the UB 2020 initiative, it felt like the right time to be at UB.

"It seemed like it would be a good time to come back and be involved in the building process," he says.

Returning to UB definitely has other advantages, Bonner points out, noting that he knows both UB faculty members and Roswell Park staff who might make good research partners and resources.

"My hope was that I'd be able to hit the ground running a little bit more quickly than if I'd gone someplace else," he says. "And on a personal level, I was excited about coming back here because it is a great place."

So far, the move back to Buffalo has worked out well for Bonner, his wife, Patricia, who works as a pharmacist, and their three children: Isabella, 5; Aiden, 3; and Liam, 18 months. They've settled in Hamburg, where his wife grew up and where Isabella now attends kindergarten.

"Hamburg is a nice, small village, and we live right in the village, so we walk places," he says. "It's nice not to have to drive everywhere, and the commute is not particularly difficult.

"I like the snow and the summers are nice," he adds, recalling the two years he lived outside Washington, D.C., where the summers are so hot "you spend your summer going from your air-conditioned house to your air-conditioned automobile to your air-conditioned office."