Matthew grew up in the Hudson Valley of NY and attended Marist College, where he studied environmental science and biology. In 2015, he came to Duke through the Integrated Toxicology and Environmental Health Program. After completing his rotations, he joined the Stapleton lab in 2016. Matthew’s dissertation investigates how prenatal exposure to a class of flame-retarant chemicals, known as polyborminated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), accumulate in the placenta and how they cross the placental barrier. He also studies the mechanisms by which they can the disrupt thyroid hormone system during pregnancy. One of his projects was in collaboration with investigators at North Carolina State University and sought to understand the toxicokinetics of PBDEs in pregnant Wistar rats. The study discovered that PBDEs were accumulating at higher levels in the fetal portion of the placenta relative to the maternal portion. He also observed effects on thyroid hormone regulation in the dam and tissue-specific differences in thyroid hormone levels in the placenta. These findings led him to his next project where he used an in vitro placental cell line to investigate more mechanistically why and how PBDEs were accumulating at higher levels in the fetal portion of the placenta. Currently, he is quantifying contaminants in placentas from fraternal twins to better understand how the sex of the fetus influences the degree of accumulation. Outside of the lab, Matt enrolled in the New Ventures Clinic; a business course that pairs PhD students and MBAs with physicians at Duke to help them with the clinical, regulatory, and business development of an early-stage drug or medical device. When not asking pregnant women for their placenta, Matt spends his free time tending to his 20+ chickens, 2 rescue pigs, and foster dogs.
PhD Program: Environment
Faculty Advisor: Heather Stapleton, PhD
2020-2021 Status: 6th year
Contact: matthew.ruis@duke.edu
