PhD
Assistant Professor, Nutrition, and Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
UNC-Chapel Hill
Molecular Therapeutics
Area of Interest
Blake Rushing, PhD, is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Nutrition Research Institute (NRI). Rushing is trained in pharmacology and toxicology, and has experience using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance, in vitro model systems, and various biochemical assays to study the interactions between small molecule toxins/drugs with macromolecular targets such as proteins and DNA. He is well versed in using analytical instrumentation to study metabolic products of exogenous small molecule agents and their biological effects.
Rushing earned a BS in Chemistry from Catawba College, and a PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology in 2018 from East Carolina University. Rushing conducts research as a member of the Metabolomics and Exposome Laboratory in the Sumner Lab at NRI, and he is an investigator in the NIEHS-funded Human Health Exposure Analysis Resource (HHEAR) program and the Nutrition for Precision Health (NPH) program. In these roles, he has determined metabolomic signatures and pathway perturbations associated with human disease (e.g., cancer, osteoarthritis), nutrient deficiencies in wild type and knockout animal models (e.g., folate), and cellular response to anti-cancer agents.
Rushing’s career interests lie in using omics techniques to study how nutrients and other compounds from the diet can be used to enhance the efficacy of drugs or mitigate against their adverse effects.
Awards and Honors
- Research Competition Award, National Environmental Health Association, Frank C. Lu student award, Society of Toxicology, 2017
- Supplemental Scholarship of the Foundation for Toxicology and Agromedicine, NC State, 2014
- Association of Environmental Health Academic Programs (AEHAP) Student
- Whitener Award Recipient, Catawba College, 2013
