The research is the first U.S. study to formally examine and document the use of brominated flame retardants in firefighter turnout gear, which is worn during emergency responses. The findings could play a role in how fire departments decide whether to continue using existing equipment or invest in replacements.

Structural firefighters — those working in the built environment — rely on turnout gear made up of three distinct layers. These include a flame-resistant outer shell, a middle moisture barrier that blocks germs while allowing airflow, and an inner lining designed to help regulate body temperature.

According to lead author Heather Stapleton, Ronie-Richele Garcia-Johnson Distinguished Professor at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, manufacturers apply chemical treatments to these garments to ensure they meet strict safety standards set by the National Fire Protection Association.

PFAS Concerns Raise New Questions

For several years, firefighters have expressed concern about the presence of PFAS in turnout gear. These chemicals are used to repel oil and water and can also contribute to flame resistance. Numerous studies involving humans and animals have linked PFAS exposure to health problems, including certain cancers.

While no studies have directly connected PFAS treated turnout gear to health outcomes in firefighters, manufacturers have begun moving away from these chemicals. In addition, multiple states have passed laws that will ban the purchase of PFAS treated turnout gear starting in 2027.

As PFAS are phased out, attention has turned to what substances may be taking their place. Chemical ingredients used in turnout gear treatments are not typically disclosed by manufacturers.

“There was a rumor that one of the turnout gear manufacturers might be using brominated flame retardants in the non-PFAS treated textiles,” Stapleton said. “Because some brominated flame retardants have known toxicity, I requested a sample of the gear in question to test.'”

Why Brominated Flame Retardants Matter

Brominated flame retardants are commonly added to fabrics and other products to reduce how easily they ignite. Exposure to these chemicals has been linked to health concerns including cancer, thyroid disease, and problems with brain development.

Stapleton’s initial testing confirmed the presence of brominated flame retardants in the turnout gear sample. That finding led to a broader study conducted in collaboration with researchers at North Carolina State University’s Wilson College of Textiles and the International Association of Fire Fighters. The goal was to examine how often PFAS and brominated flame retardants appeared in turnout gear made during different time periods.

Peeling Back the Layers

The research team analyzed nine sets of used turnout gear manufactured between 2013 and 2020, along with three sets produced in 2024 that were marketed as non-PFAS treated. Using two analytical techniques, the scientists tested each layer of the gear for both PFAS and brominated flame retardants. This approach allowed them to measure total chemical content as well as the portion that could transfer during use, referred to as “extractable” levels.

“We wanted to know which chemicals were intentionally applied during manufacturing, and we wanted to know what was likely to leach out over time, which could raise the risk of exposure through skin absorption or inhalation,” Stapleton said.

As expected, PFAS were detected in all turnout gear produced between 2013 and 2020. In contrast, gear manufactured in 2024 showed only low or non-detectable extractable PFAS levels, indicating the garments had not been treated with these chemicals, consistent with manufacturer claims. The small amounts detected were likely picked up from the surrounding environment during use, the authors noted.

Every set of turnout gear tested also contained brominated flame retardants, with extractable levels generally higher than those measured for PFAS.

Higher Levels in PFAS Free Gear

The highest extractable concentrations of brominated flame retardants were found in gear marketed as non-PFAS treated, particularly within the moisture barrier. Stapleton said this suggests manufacturers intentionally added brominated flame retardants to meet flammability requirements, likely replacing a PFAS compound previously used in that layer.

Among the chemicals identified, decabromodiphenyl ethane, or DBDPE, appeared at the highest extractable levels.

Although no U.S. studies have examined health effects linked to DBDPE exposure, the researchers pointed to a 2019 study of workers at a chemical manufacturing plant in China. That study found associations between DBDPE exposure, altered thyroid hormone levels, and signs of thyroid disease.

“I was really surprised that the manufacturers used DBDPE in turnout gear,” Stapleton said. “It has similar properties as a toxic chemical called decaBDE that has been largely phased out globally, raising questions about its safety.”

Fire Exposure Versus Manufacturing Choices

For turnout gear produced between 2013 and 2020, the outer shell typically contained higher extractable levels of brominated flame retardants than the moisture barrier or inner lining. Stapleton said this pattern likely reflects buildup from smoke and soot encountered during fires.

“When building materials burn, they can release brominated flame retardants into the air that stick to gear and don’t wash out very well,” she explained.

At the same time, the presence of these chemicals in internal layers suggests that some manufacturers had incorporated brominated flame retardants into turnout gear treatments for years, even before PFAS began to be phased out, according to the authors.

Weighing the Costs

While researchers have not yet determined firefighters’ exact exposure levels or the long-term health effects associated with these chemicals, the study provides new information for fire departments evaluating protective gear.

“Turnout gear is really expensive — one set costs thousands of dollars — and firefighters often use these garments for many years. Fire departments must consider both the financial and personal safety costs of keeping or replacing gear,” said coauthor R. Bryan Ormond, an associate professor at the Wilson College of Textiles and director of NC State’s Milliken Textile Protection and Comfort Center, who studies trade-offs in gear performance.

Stapleton noted that some manufacturers now offer turnout gear that avoids both PFAS and brominated flame retardants. She encouraged fire departments to push for clearer disclosure about chemical treatments used in protective equipment.

“We know firefighters receive higher exposure to multiple chemicals from all the hazards they face during their duty, and they shouldn’t have to worry about receiving additional chemical exposures from their gear,” said Stapleton, who also leads a study on cancer incidence in firefighters. “These first responders are a critically important component of our public safety and deserve to be respected and protected.”

Study Support and Funding

This project was supported by the North Carolina Collaboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with funding appropriated by the North Carolina General Assembly (to HMS and BO). HMS also wishes to thank Michael and Annie Falk for establishing the Falk Exposomics Laboratory.

Scientists at The Rockefeller University have now uncovered crucial details about the T cell receptor (TCR), a protein complex embedded in the cell membrane that plays a central role in T cell therapies. Using cryo-EM, researchers from the Laboratory of Molecular Electron Microscopy studied the receptor in a biochemical setting designed to closely resemble its native milieu. They discovered that the TCR behaves like a jack-in-the-box, staying compact until it encounters an antigen or another suspicious particle, at which point it rapidly opens. This behavior contradicts what earlier cryo-EM studies of the receptor had shown.

The findings, published in Nature Communications, could help researchers improve and expand the use of T cell immunotherapies.

“This new fundamental understanding of how the signaling system works may help re-engineer that next generation of treatments,” says first author Ryan Notti, an instructor in clinical investigation in Walz’s lab and a special fellow in the Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he treats patients with sarcomas, or cancers that arise in soft tissue or bone.

“The T cell receptor is really the basis of virtually all oncological immunotherapies, so it’s remarkable that we use the system but really have had no idea how it actually works — and that’s where basic science steps in,” says Walz, a world expert in cryo-EM imaging. “This is some of the most important work to ever come out of my lab.”

How T Cells Detect Threats

Walz’s lab focuses on producing detailed images of macromolecular complexes, especially proteins found in cell membranes that help cells communicate with their surroundings. The TCR is one such complex. Made up of multiple proteins, it enables T cells to recognize antigens displayed by human leukocyte antigen (HLA) complexes on other cells. This recognition process is what T cell therapies rely on to mobilize the immune system against cancer.

Although scientists have known the individual parts of the TCR for many years, the earliest steps that trigger its activation have remained elusive. Notti, who works as both a physician and a researcher, found this gap especially troubling because many of his sarcoma patients were not benefiting from T cell immunotherapies.

“Determining that would help us understand how the information gets from outside the cell, where those antigens are being presented by HLAs, to the inside of the cell, where signaling turns on the T cell,” he says.

Notti earned his Ph.D. in structural microbiology at Rockefeller before moving into oncology, and he suggested to Walz that they investigate this unanswered question together.

Rebuilding the TCR’s Natural Environment

Walz’s team is known for creating custom membrane environments that closely mimic the natural surroundings of membrane proteins. “We can change the biochemical composition, the thickness of the membrane, the tension and curvature, the size — all kinds of parameters that we know have an influence on the embedded protein,” Walz says.

For this study, the researchers set out to observe the TCR in conditions that closely resemble those inside a living cell. They placed the receptor into a nanodisc, a tiny disc-shaped section of membrane held in solution by a scaffold protein wrapped around its edge. Assembling the full receptor was difficult, and “getting all eight of these proteins properly assembled into the nanodisc was challenging,” Notti says.

Previous structural studies of the TCR had relied on detergent, which often strips away the surrounding membrane. Walz notes that this was the first time the receptor complex had been restored to a membrane environment for detailed imaging.

Seeing the Receptor Switch On

Once the TCR was embedded in the nanodisc, the researchers used cryo-EM to visualize it. The images showed that the receptor remains closed and compact when inactive. When it encounters an antigen-presenting molecule, however, the structure opens and extends outward, resembling a wide-reaching motion.

The result surprised the team. “The data that were available when we began this research depicted this complex as being open and extended in its dormant state,” Notti explains. “As far as anyone knew, the T cell receptor didn’t undergo any conformational changes when binding to these antigens. But we found that it does, springing open like a sort of jack-in-the-box.”

The researchers believe two factors made this discovery possible. First, they carefully recreated the TCR’s in vivo membrane environment using the right lipid mixture. Second, they reinserted the receptor into a membrane using nanodiscs before conducting cryo-EM imaging. They found that an intact membrane keeps the receptor in a closed position until activation occurs. In earlier studies, detergent may have removed this restraint, allowing the receptor to open prematurely.

“It was important that we used a lipid mixture that resembled that of the native T cell membrane,” says Walz. “If we had just used a model lipid, we wouldn’t have seen this closed dormant state either.”

Implications for Cancer Therapies and Vaccines

The team believes their findings could help improve treatments that rely on T cell receptors. “Re-engineering the next generation of immunotherapies tops the charts in terms of unmet clinical needs,” Notti says. “For example, adoptive T cell therapies are being used successfully to treat certain very rare sarcomas, so one could imagine using our insights to re-engineer the sensitivity of those receptors by tuning their activation threshold.”

Walz also sees potential applications beyond cancer therapy. “This information may be used for vaccine design as well,” he adds. “People in the field can now use our structures to see refined details about the interactions between different antigens presented by HLA and T cell receptors. Those different modes of interaction might have some implication for how the receptor functions — and ways to optimize it.”

Quantum spin liquids have fascinated physicists for years because they could eventually support transformative technologies, including quantum computing and dissipationless energy transmission. Unlike ordinary magnets that settle into an orderly pattern, these materials avoid conventional magnetic order. Instead, their magnetic moments remain strongly quantum-entangled and in constant collective motion at temperatures close to absolute zero, producing behavior that resembles emergent quantum electrodynamics.

“We’ve answered a major open question by directly detecting these excitations,” said Dai, the Sam and Helen Worden Professor of Physics and Astronomy. “This confirms that Ce2Zr2O₇ behaves as a true quantum spin ice, a special class of quantum spin liquids in three dimensions.”

Cleaner Measurements With Polarized Neutron Scattering

To pin down these elusive signatures, the researchers relied on advanced polarized neutron scattering. This approach helped them isolate the magnetic scattering they cared about while filtering out other signals, even as the system approached the zero temperature limit.

Their measurements also revealed emergent photon signals near zero energy — a defining trait that separates quantum spin ice from more familiar phases found in conventional magnets. Additional evidence came from specific heat measurements, which supported the idea that these predicted emergent photons follow a dispersion resembling the way sound moves through a solid.

Earlier attempts to confirm this kind of behavior were often undermined by technical noise and incomplete data. The Rice-led team addressed those challenges through improved sample preparation and high-precision instruments, supported by an international effort involving major laboratories across Europe and North America.

First-of-Its-Kind Observation With Big Implications

In this three-dimensional candidate material, the researchers observed both emergent photons and spinons — key hallmarks of quantum spin ice. The result resolves a long-running debate in condensed matter physics and gives scientists a strong platform for studying next-generation quantum phenomena and potential technology pathways.

Bin Gao, a research scientist in Rice’s Department of Physics and Astronomy and the study’s first author, said the findings back up decades of theoretical expectations.

“This surprising result encourages scientists to look deeper into such unique materials, potentially changing how we understand magnets and the behavior of materials in the extreme quantum regime,” Gao said.

Research Team and Funding

Co-authors of this study include Félix Desrochers and Yong Baek Kim of the University of Toronto; Rice alumnus David Tam of the Paul Scherrer Institut; Silke Paschen, Diana Kirschbaum and Duy Ha Nguyen of Vienna University of Technology; Paul Steffens and Arno Hiess of the Institut Laue-Langevin; Yixi Su of Jülich Centre of Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum; and Sang-Wook Cheong of Rutgers University.

The U.S. Department of Energy, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Robert A. Welch Foundation supported this study.

The case involved a 47 year old man from New Jersey who was previously healthy and died suddenly about four hours after eating beef. For months, the cause of his death remained unclear. That changed when Thomas Platts Mills, MD, PhD, a UVA Health physician and internationally recognized allergy specialist, took a closer look. Platts Mills originally identified the condition years ago and continues to lead research into how it affects patients.

How Lone Star Tick Bites Trigger Alpha Gal Allergy

The allergy develops after a bite from the Lone Star tick. These bites can cause the immune system to become sensitive to alpha gal, a sugar naturally found in meat from mammals. Once sensitized, people may experience allergic symptoms after eating foods such as beef, pork, or lamb. Common reactions include skin rashes, nausea, and vomiting.

Scientists have long suspected that severe cases could escalate into life threatening anaphylaxis. Until now, however, no fatal cases had been officially confirmed.

“The important information for the public is: First, that severe abdominal pain occurring 3 to 5 hours after eating beef, pork or lamb should be investigated as a possible episode of anaphylaxis; and, second, that tick bites that itch for more than a week or larvae of ticks often called ‘chiggers’ can induce or increase sensitization to mammalian-derived meat,” said Platts Mills, former chief of UVA Health’s Division of Asthma, Allergy and Clinical Immunology. “On the other hand, most individuals who have mild to moderate episodes of hives can control symptoms with an appropriate diet.”

What Happened Before the Man’s Death

The man, whose name was not made public, had gone camping with his wife and children during the summer of 2024. One evening, the family ate a late steak dinner at 10 p.m. Around 2 a.m., the man woke up with intense stomach pain, diarrhea, and vomiting. Although he felt better by morning, he later told his son that the episode had felt life threatening.

About two weeks later, still unaware that he had developed the meat allergy, he attended a barbeque and ate a hamburger. He began feeling unwell shortly after 7 p.m. At 7:37 p.m., his son found him collapsed in the bathroom.

Autopsy Raises More Questions Than Answers

An autopsy did not reveal a clear explanation for his death. The official cause was listed as “sudden unexplained death.”

His wife was not satisfied with that conclusion and asked another physician to review the findings. That doctor contacted Platts Mills and his team to explore whether alpha gal sensitivity could be involved.

Blood Tests Reveal Severe Allergic Reaction

Platts Mills obtained blood samples that had been collected after the man’s death. Testing showed that he had indeed been sensitized to alpha gal. The results also pointed to an extreme immune response consistent with fatal anaphylaxis.

When asked about recent tick exposure, the man’s wife said he had not noticed any tick bites in the past year. However, she recalled that he had suffered 12 or 13 itchy bites around his ankles earlier in the summer, which they believed were caused by chiggers. Platts Mills recognized that many bites thought to be from chiggers in the eastern United States are actually from Lone Star tick larvae.

Factors That May Have Worsened the Reaction

Platts Mills and his colleagues believe several conditions may have intensified the man’s allergic response. These include drinking a beer with the hamburger, exposure to ragweed pollen, and physical exercise earlier that day. Family members also noted that he rarely ate red meat, which may have influenced how his immune system reacted.

Growing Tick Populations Increase Risk

Following the case, Platts Mills is urging doctors to stay alert for patients who may have developed this allergy or who face higher exposure risk. He pointed out that deer populations are rapidly increasing in many states, creating ideal conditions for the Lone Star tick to spread.

“It is important that both doctors and patients who live in an area of the country where Lone Star ticks are common should be aware of the risk of sensitization,” Platts Mills said. “More specifically, if they have unexpected episodes of severe abdominal pain occurring several hours after eating mammalian meat, they should be investigated for possible sensitization to the oligosaccharide alpha-gal.”

Case Findings Published in Medical Journal

Details of the case have been published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice. The article is open access, meaning it is available to read for free. The authors include Platts Mills, Lisa J. Workman, Nathan E. Richards, Jeffrey M. Wilson, and Erin M. McFeely.

The research team obtained consent from the man’s widow before releasing the findings.