Vasu Bahl, a second year PhD student in the Environmental Toxicology Graduate Program at UCR, won a prize for her poster presentation entitled "Smoke and Chemicals from Cigarettes Impair Stem Cell Growth". This poster was presented at the Southern California Society of Toxicology Regional Chapter meeting held this year at Allergan in Irvine. Vasu used stem cells from the mouse and human as models to investigate how cigarette smoke could affect prenatal and early postnatal development. Vasu's poster showed that whole smoke impaired the growth of both mouse neural stem cells (mNSC) and human embryonic stem cells (hESC) and that mNSC were more sensitive to smoke than the human cells. Specific chemicals in smoke (phenol, pyrazine, 3-ethylpryridine, 4-methyl pyridine, and nicotine) inhibited growth of hESC, and phenol inhibited growth of mNSC. Also a vapor effect was found at some high doses. These data suggest that smoke from cigarettes could adversely affect survival of stem cells in embryos and newborns.