The Effects of an Israeli Dust Storm on Human Cells

Dust storms are a common occurrence in many locations around the world. Dust storms have been linked to various chronic health issues, not to mention being the cause of serious injury, and even death. By analyzing the effects that dust particles collected in a dust storm event in Israel on May 3, 2007 have on human lung cells (A549), we can effectively study the mechanism through which dust particles affect human health. In these experiments, dust particles (<2.5µm) were exposed to the cells at different concentrations of (10 - 250 µg/ml). The cells were monitored for 48 hours, with images taken every 15 minutes. A total of 300 cells at each concentration were tracked to observe cell death or division. We found that an increase in dust concentrations increases the number of cell deaths and also had minor effects on cell divisions. In this presentation, we will present these findings as well as discuss how the amounts of dust particles accumulated by cells affects cell behavior.