David H. Petering, Ph.D.

Recruitment and Screening Panel

David H. Petering is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Science (NIEHS) Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Science Center. Dr. Petering's research spans several areas of metals in biological systems. Since his postdoctoral days, he has maintained a continually funded program in metallodrug studies, focusing on the chemical and cellular mechanism of action of copper and iron thiosemicarbazones, iron bleomycin, and cis-dichlorodiammine Pt, as well as the role of iron in the biochemical activity of adriamycin. These studies have become interwoven with work on the chemical and cellular activation of dioxygen. For most of his tenure at UW-Milwaukee, Dr. Petering has also devoted himself to understanding the biochemical basis for human cadmium toxicity, using a proximal tubule model to examine how cadmium inhibits nutrient transport and the protein metallothionein to consider structure-function relationships that determine its role in protection against cadmium toxicity. His research has also included investigations of the reactivity of metallothionein with metal ions, competing ligands, and oxidants and an examination of the role of metallothionein in zinc and copper metabolism. This research has also received continual funding from NIH. More recently, his research has focused on zinc finger proteins as sites of toxic metal action and AIDS antiviral therapy, and the reductive activation of chromate to understand how this carcinogen damages DNA. Dr. Petering directs the Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Sciences Center, an extramural center of NIEHS devoted to the use of aquatic model systems to study mechanistic problems related to human environmental health. He leads one of the research cores that is working on metal/neurobehavioral toxicology and is focusing on the use of zebrafish in toxicological research. The Center also has been funded to develop novel approaches to the introduction of environmental health knowledge into the middle school Life Science course. At the national level, Dr. Petering recently served for five years on one of the toxicology study sections of NIH, the last two as Chair. At UW-Milwaukee, he was Chair of the campus Academic Planning and Budget Committee for the first five years of its existence (1996-2001), having led the faculty input in the campus strategic and investment plans and organized an all-campus review of undergraduate and graduate academic programs. He is currently the leader of teh campus research and education self-study associated witht eh university's 10-year accreditation review by the North Central Association. Dr. Petering received his bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, from Wabash College and a doctorate in biological chemistry from the University of Michigan. His postdoctoral research in bioinorganic chemistry and pharmacology was conducted with Dr. Fred Basolo of the Chemistry Department at Northwestern University. Since that time he has worked in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, except for a leave of absence to collaborate with Dr. Bruce Fowler at the National Institute of Environmental Health Science in the area of metals toxicology. He is adjunct Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicilogy at the Medical College of Wisconsin.