David   J.P. Bassett, B.Sc. (LON), Ph.D.
Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health
Wayne State University

3939 Woodward Avenue, Room 217
Tel: (313) 577-1424
Fax: (313)-577-0097
E-mail: david.bassett@med.wayne.edu

David Bassett, Ph.D. has recently stepped down after 6 years as the Graduate Student Officer of the MPH Program.  He continues as a member of the Master of Public Health (MPH) faculty, advising students and maintaining his graduate course offerings in occupational and environmental health.  He is also engaged in the development of new multi-disciplinary problem-based courses and in the establishment and evaluation of mechanisms for assessing competence-based educational outcomes.

He received his baccalaureate degree in biochemistry from University College, London University, U.K. (1970), and an external Ph.D. in pulmonary biochemistry from the Faculty of Science at London University (1978) while working in the Johnson Research Foundation and Department of Physiology at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. Following a short period as a research associate in the Department of Biophysics and Physiology at Georgetown University, he joined the biomedical research group at Allied Chemical Corporation NJ, while serving on the adjunct faculty in the Department of Experimental Pathology at Columbia University in New York.  He came to Wayne State University in 1991, after 11 years on the faculty of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences of the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore, where he had been Deputy Director of the Environmental Health Sciences Research Center and Director of the Inhalation Exposure Facility.  He joined the Department following 12 years as the chairman of the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health Science.

He has published extensively in the field of pulmonary and inhalation toxicology and is currently examining the biochemical and patho-physiological determinants associated with the development of inflammatory diseases of the lung resulting from exposures to allergens and other airborne substances found in workplace, home and ambient environments.  

Current research projects include:

1. Examination of the effects of air pollutant exposure on lungs at different stages of airway remodeling associated with the development of chronic asthma - in collaboration with Dr. S. Wilson, University of Southampton, UK.; and Dr. K. Roberts, University of Montana, Missoula, MT. 
2. Collaboration with Dr. H. Haitchi and colleagues at the University of Southampton UK, in exploring the genetic determinants by which maternal allergen and tobacco smoke exposure alter fetal and offspring lung development.
3. Development and application of inflammatory lung models for use in the evaluation of new drug delivery systems based on nano-technology - in support of projects led by Drs. M. Lieh-Lai, and R. Kannan, of the WSU Departments of Paediatric Medicine and Chemical Engineering and Material Sciences, respectively.
4. Collaboration with Drs M. Hüttemann and L. Grossman of the WSU Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics in their establishment of the phenotype of mice with genetically altered mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase enzyme activities for use as a potential new models for the study lung disorders such as asthma and COPD

Selected Publications:

D.J.P. Bassett . Ozone-Induced Lung Injury. In: Handbook of Animal Models of Pulmonary Disease Vol I. (Ed. J. Cantor) CRC Press, pp 19-30,1989.

D.J.P. Bassett , C.L. Elbon, and S.S. Reichenbaugh.   Respiratory activity of lung mitochondria isolated from oxygen-exposed rats. Am. J. Physiol. [Lung] 263:L439-L445, 1992.

D.J.P. Bassett and S.S. Reichenbaugh.   Lung mitochondrial function following oxygen exposure and diethylmaleate-induced depletion of glutathione. Toxicol. Appl. Pharmacol. 115:161-167, 1992.  

D.J.P. Bassett and R.A. Roth.   The Isolated Perfused Rat Lung Preparation. In: Methods of Toxicology (Ed. R. Watson) CRC Press, pp143-155, 1992.
A.M.K. Choi, C.L. Elbon, S.A. Bruce, and D.J.P. Bassett .   Messenger RNA levels of lung extracellular matrix proteins during ozone exposure.   Lung. 172:15-30, 1994.

A.H. Schultheis, D.J.P. Bassett and A.D. Fryer. Ozone-induced airway hyper-responsiveness and loss of neuronal M 2 muscarinic receptor function. J. Appl. Physiol. 76:1088-1097, 1994.

D.J.P. Bassett , Y. Ishii, H. Yang,   C.L. Elbon, L. Otterbein, G. Boswell, and J.S. Kerr.   EDU-pretreatment decreases polymorphonuclear leukocyte migration into rat lung airways. Toxicol.Appl.Pharmacol. 127:76-82, 1994.

Y. Ishii, H. Yang, T. Sakamoto, A. Nomura, F. Hirata, S. Hazegawa, and Bassett, D.J.P.  Rat alveolar macrophage cytokine production and regulation of neutrophil recruitment following acute ozone exposure. Toxicol. Appl. Pharmacol. 147: 214-223, 1998.

D.J.P. Bassett , C. Elbon-Copps, Y. Ishii, H. Barraclough-Mitchell, and H. Yang. Lung tissue neutrophil content as a determinant of ozone-induced injury. J  Toxicol Environ Health   Part A. 25;60:513-530, 2000.

D.J.P. Bassett and D.K. Bhalla.   Inflammation and Fibrosis In: Pulmonary Immunotoxicology,   M. Cohen, J. Zelikoff and R. Schlesinger (Editors).   Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2000.

S.P. Sanders, D.J. P. Bassett, S.J. Harrison, D. Pearse, J.L. Zweier, P.M. Becker. Measurements of free radicals in isolated, ischemic lungs and lung mitochondria.   Lung. 2000;178(2):105-18.

D.J.P. Bassett , C. Elbon-Copps, S.S. Otterbein, H. Barraclough-Mitchell, M. DeLorme and H. Yang. Inflammatory cell availability affects ozone-induced lung damage. J. Toxicol. Environ .Hlth Part A. 64:547-565, 2001.

M. P. DeLorme, H. Yang, C. Elbon-Copp, X. Gao, H. Barraclough-Mitchell and D.J.P. Bassett    Hyperresponsive airways correlate with lung inflammatory cell changes in ozone-exposed rats. J. Toxicol Environ Hlth   Part A, 65: 101-118, 2002.

M. P. DeLorme, X. Gao, H. Barraclough-Mitchell, Nicole Reale and D.J.P. Bassett    Pulmonary effects of endotoxin contaminated metal working fluid in a rat lung. J. Toxicol Environ Hlth   Part A, 66:7-24, 2003.

S. Kannan, P. Kolhe, V. Raykova, M. Glibatec, R. M. Kannan, M. Lieh.Lai and D.J.P. Bassett .   Dynamics of cellular entry and drug delivery by dentritic polymers into human lung epithelial carcinoma cells.   J. Biomaterial Sci. Polymer Edn. 15: 311-330, 2004.

H.M.  Haitchi,  D.J.P Bassett., F. Bucchieri,  X.Gao,  R.M. Powell, N.A. Hanley, D.I.Wilson, S.T. Holgate,  and D. Davies,  Induction of a disintegrin and metalloprotease 33 during  embryonic lung development and the influence of IL-13 or maternal allergy.   J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 124:590-597, 2009.

D. Bassett, F. Hirata, X Gao,  R. Kannan,  J. Kerr, N. Doyon-Reale, S. Wilson, and  M. Lieh-Lai.  Reversal of methylprednisolone effects in allergen-exposed female BALB/c mice.   J. Toxicol. Environ. Hlth.  Part A, 73:711-724, 2010.

R. Inapagolla, B. Raja Guru, Y. E. Kurtoglu,  X. Gao, M. Lieh-Lai, D. J. P. Bassett, R. M. Kannan.   In vivo efficacy of dendrimer - methylprednisolone conjugate formulation for the treatment of lung inflammation.  International J of Pharmaceutics 399:140-147, 2010.