Environmental Health Science Research Research Articles

Obesity Modulated Gut Microbiota Exacerbate Disease Severity in HLA-Class II Transgenic Mouse Model of Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory and demyelinating disease of the CNS where interaction among multiple environmental and genetic factors influence disease outcome. HLA class II alleles such as HLA-DR2 and –DR3 are considered strongest genetic factors linked with MS, whereas recently gut microbiota have emerged as an important environmental factor linked to MS. Additionally, obesity has been shown to promote MS disease severity. However, the mechanistic link between gut microbiota and obesity in pathobiology of MS is unknown. HLA-DR3 transgenic mice on a high-fat diet (HFD) to induce obesity, resulted in severe EAE compared to normal chow diet (NCD). Antibiotic-mediated gut microbiota depletion and fecal transplant studies established that the microbiota is necessary and sufficient for obesity to potentiate EAE severity. Obesity-associated microbiota alterations included increases in bacterial genes linked with hydrogen sulfide (H 2S)-metabolism, with concordant increases in fecal H 2S. Further, mice on HFD showed increased gut permeability and systemic inflammation compared with NCD group. Altogether, this study provides evidence for involvement of the gut microbiome and associated H 2S-metabolism microbial genes in obesity induced modulation of EAE severity. Dissection of these pathways will help to identify novel therapeutic targets to reduce disease severity in obese patients. The Author acknowledge funding from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society grant (RG 5138A1/1T), National Institutes of Health/NIAID (1R01AI137075), the University of Iowa Environmental Health Sciences Research Center, NIEHS/NIH (P30 ES005605), and a gift from P. Heppelmann and M. Wacek to AM.

Bringing soil chemistry to environmental health science to tackle soil contaminants.

With an estimated five million sites worldwide, soil contamination is a global-scale threat to environmental and human health. Humans continuously interact with soil, both directly and indirectly, making soils potentially significant sources of exposure to contaminants. Soil chemists are thus a potentially dynamic part of a collaborative cohort attacking environmental health science problems, yet collaborations between soil chemists and environmental heath scientists remain infrequent. In this commentary, we discuss the unique properties of soils that influence contaminants, as well as ways that soil chemists can contribute to environmental health research. Additionally, we describe barriers to, and needs for, the integration of soil chemistry expertise in environmental health science research with a focus on the future.

HLA Class II Polymorphisms Influence Gut Microbiota Composition and Modulate Disease in Transgenic Mice Model of Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory, demyelinating disease of the central nervous system with unknown etiology. The interaction of both genetic and environmental factors plays an important role in MS pathogenesis. Recently, gut microbiota has emerged as a potential environmental factor in MS pathology due to its ability to modulate host immune response. Yet, it is unknown whether genetic factors, such as HLA class II gene(s), can influence gut microbiota which then can modulate MS through regulation of the host immune response. In the present study, we investigated the involvement of gut microbiota in HLA class II genes mediated susceptibility and resistance to MS/experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis-EAE (an animal model of MS). Previously, we showed that HLA-DR3 transgenic mice lacking endogenous mouse class II genes (AE-KO) were susceptible to proteolipid protein-PLP91–110 induced EAE, whereas AE-KO.HLA-DQ8 transgenic mice were resistant to PLP91–110. Surprisingly, HLA-DR3.DQ8 double transgenic mice showed increased EAE severity compared with HLA-DR3 mice. Distinct microbiota in HLA-DR3, HLA-DQ8, and HLA-DR3.DQ8 transgenic mice compared to AE-KO mice suggested an important role of HLA class-II gene in shaping the gut microbiota composition. We also observed that gut microbiota of HLA-DQ8 mice was more similar to HLA-DR3.DQ8 than HLA-DR3. As the presence of HLA-DQ8 on an HLA-DR3 background increases disease severity, our data suggest that HLA-DQ8 restricted microbiota may contribute to disease severity in HLA-DR3.DQ8 mice. Altogether, our study provides evidence that the HLA-DR and -DQ genes linked to specific gut microbiota may contribute to EAE susceptibility or resistance in a transgenic animal model of MS. The authors acknowledge funding from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (RG 5138A1/1T), NIAID/NIH (1R01AI137075-01), a Carver Trust Medical Research Initiative Grant, and the University of Iowa Environmental Health Sciences Research Center, NIEHS/NIH (P30 ES005605). SA was supported by the Emory Warner Fellowship, which provides medical students at the Carver College of Medicine the opportunity to take a full year out of their medical school curriculum to work in a laboratory in the University of Iowa Department of Pathology. 

Catalyzing Knowledge-Driven Discovery in Environmental Health Sciences through a Community-Driven Harmonized Language.

Harmonized language is critical for helping researchers to find data, collecting scientific data to facilitate comparison, and performing pooled and meta-analyses. Using standard terms to link data to knowledge systems facilitates knowledge-driven analysis, allows for the use of biomedical knowledge bases for scientific interpretation and hypothesis generation, and increasingly supports artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Due to the breadth of environmental health sciences (EHS) research and the continuous evolution in scientific methods, the gaps in standard terminologies, vocabularies, ontologies, and related tools hamper the capabilities to address large-scale, complex EHS research questions that require the integration of disparate data and knowledge sources. The results of prior workshops to advance a harmonized environmental health language demonstrate that future efforts should be sustained and grounded in scientific need. We describe a community initiative whose mission was to advance integrative environmental health sciences research via the development and adoption of a harmonized language. The products, outcomes, and recommendations developed and endorsed by this community are expected to enhance data collection and management efforts for NIEHS and the EHS community, making data more findable and interoperable. This initiative will provide a community of practice space to exchange information and expertise, be a coordination hub for identifying and prioritizing activities, and a collaboration platform for the development and adoption of semantic solutions. We encourage anyone interested in advancing this mission to engage in this community.

The NIEHS DR2 Network: Addressing COVID-19 Environmental Health Issues Through a Multi-Institution Academic Community of Practice

BACKGROUND AND AIM: The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Disaster Response Research (DR2) Network is a network of collaborative investigators across the United States representing multiple NIEHS funded centers and programs with expertise in disaster response science. The network was established to advance the field of DR2 by promoting the coordinated, ethical, and timely collection, analysis, and dissemination of environmental health research following a disaster or other extreme event. METHODS: The Network rapidly developed a COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 Environmental Health Research Agenda. Using a modified Delphi approach, the Network rapidly convened 26 subject matter experts to identify 28 environmental health sciences research priorities. The Network also brought together environmental health sciences researchers and NIEHS staff through monthly meetings to share information and provide feedback on data collection protocols and assessment tools. With the need for rapid dissemination of COVID-19 research data, the DR2 Network organized a virtual symposium for investigators to share their ongoing research to advance environmental health science related to COVID-19. RESULTS:The Network has identified 28 COVID-19 environmental health science research priorities. The Symposium provided an outlet and dissemination mechanism for the state of the science on: routes of transmission and exposure mitigation; mental health impacts on workers; addressing COVID-19 challenges with community partners; and environmental justice. CONCLUSIONS:The Network is an effective collaboration among investigators from across the US representing multiple NIEHS funded centers and programs which as able to provide timely feedback on COVID-19 protocols, identify and environmental health science research agenda, and rapidly assemble a virtual platform for sharing ongoing research. KEYWORDS: Natural disasters, community outreach, environmental justice

Confronting Racism in Environmental Health Sciences: Moving the Science Forward for Eliminating Racial Inequities.

Background:The twin pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism during 2020 have forced a conversation across many segments of our society, including the environmental health sciences (EHS) research community. We have seen the proliferation of statements of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and commitments to fight racism and health inequities from academia, nonprofit organizations, governmental agencies, and private corporations. Actions must now arise from these promises. As public health and EHS scientists, we must examine the systems that produce and perpetuate inequities in exposure to environmental pollutants and associated health effects.Objectives:We outline five recommendations the EHS research community can implement to confront racism and move our science forward for eliminating racial inequities in environmental health.Discussion:Race is best considered a political label that promotes inequality. Thus, we should be wary of equating race with biology. Further, EHS researchers should seriously consider racism as a plausible explanation of racial disparities in health and consider structural racism as a factor in environmental health risk/impact assessments, as well as multiple explanations for racial differences in environmental exposures and health outcomes. Last, the EHS research community should develop metrics to measure racism and a set of guidelines on the use and interpretation of race and ethnicity within the environmental sciences. Numerous guidelines exist in other disciplines that can serve as models. By taking action on each of these recommendations, we can make significant progress toward eliminating racial disparities. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP8186

Interrogating the Activity of Environmental Contaminants Against the Druggable GPCR‐ome

Exposure to environmental contaminants can result in a myriad of conditions including developmental disorders, pulmonary conditions, and neurological pathologies. Literature precedent and new, emerging data, demonstrates specific GPCRs can be activated by some classes of environmental contaminants, including PCBs, pesticides, chloropropanols, and others. When interrogating GPCR’s with small‐molecule based screens, the traditional paradigm is to test hundreds of thousands of compounds against a single target. In recent literature, an open‐source method “PRESTO‐TANGO” (Parallel Receptor‐ome Expression and Screening via Transcriptional Output – TANGO) has been described as a feasible approach to simultaneously screen the entire druggable human GPCR‐ome against a smaller collection of compounds via a G protein‐independent β‐arrestin recruitment assay. In this work, we have adopted a similar approach to the PRESTO‐TANGO methodology, enabling us to screen activity of a number of environmental contaminates against the known druggable GPCR‐ome of 314 GPCRs. From our initial screen, we identified several potential ligand‐receptor interactions. Secondary dose response experiments uncovered what we believe to be a novel ligand‐receptor relationship between PCBs and the Sphingosine‐1‐phoshpate receptor (S1PR) family. Experiments to validate the relationship between the PCBs and S1PR family, as well as investigate the relevant signaling cascades impacted are currently underway. Ultimately, this work utilizes a modified form of the PRESTO‐TANGO assay as a novel screening platform to elucidate bioactivity of environmental contaminants.Support or Funding InformationThis work was supported by the University of Iowa Environmental Health Science Research Center (NIEHS P30 ES05605 D.L.R)

Metabolic Influences of Bisphenol F Exposure in Population‐based Heterogeneous Stock Rats

Bisphenol F (BPF) is marketed as a ‘safe’ substitute for bisphenol A (BPA), an endocrine disruptor associated with obesity and heart disease (i.e. cardiometabolic disease), in manufacturing polycarbonates and in common consumer products (e.g. food packaging). BPF's environmental presence is growing rapidly and is detected in over 85% of U.S. adults and children. There is evidence of individual variation in bisphenol levels, suggesting that genetic variation or gene x environment (GxE) interactions influence risk of cardiometabolic disease due to bisphenol exposure.Characterizing the cardiometabolic effects of BPF in either humans or an animal model has not been performed, and the health risks associated with BPF exposure are vastly unknown. Traditional in vivo toxicity studies are performed in genetically undefined, outbred rats or genetically homogeneous, inbred mice, leading to conflicting results possibly due to GxE interactions. The N/NIH Heterogeneous Stock (HS) rats are a genetically heterogeneous rat population that is amenable to genetic study. The overall hypothesis of this project is that BPF‐induced cardiometabolic disease is based on underlying genetic susceptibility which can be identified using the HS rat model.The goal of this pilot project was to determine if BPF exposure influences growth and adiposity in HS rats. Weanling littermate pairs of male HS rats were randomly selected for exposure to either vehicle (0.1% Ethanol) or 1.125 mg/L BPF in 0.1% Ethanol (average dose 154 μg BPF/kg body weight/day) for five weeks in drinking water. Cardiometabolic measures, tissues, urine, and feces were taken.Our studies determined BPF treatment in HS rats significantly increases body growth (Table 1). Heritability estimates of gain in body weight at eight weeks of age were 0.90±0.13 for vehicle‐treated males and 0.67±0.25 for BPF‐treated males (median±SEM). BPF treatment alters body composition seen in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements by increasing % fat and decreasing % lean, mirroring the increase in gonadal white adipose tissue (GWAT) mass and the significant increase in perirenal white adipose tissue (PWAT) mass in BPF‐treated males at eight weeks of age (Table 1). Our data suggest that BPF treatment increases body growth and adiposity, which are risk factors for cardiometabolic disease. Future studies will determine if the response to BPF is genetically regulated.Support or Funding InformationUniversity of Iowa Environmental Health Sciences Research Center (NIH P30 ES005605); National Institutes of Health Predoctoral Training Grant T32GM008629, PI Daniel Eberl.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Native American Perspectives on Health and Traditional Ecological Knowledge

Background:Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is a conceptual framework that highlights Indigenous knowledge (IK) systems. Although scientific literature has noted the relevance of TEK for environmental research since the 1980s, little attention has been given to how Native American (NA) scholars engage with it to shape tribal-based research on health, nor how non-Native scholars can coordinate their approaches with TEK. This coordination is of particular importance for environmental health sciences (EHS) research exploring interdisciplinary approaches and the integration of environmental and human health.Objective:Our perspective on TEK arose from a series of Health and Culture Research Group (HCRG) workshops that identified gaps in existing EHS methodologies that are based on a reliance on Euro-American concepts for assessing environmental exposures in tribal communities. These prior methods neither take into account cultural behavior nor community responses to these. Our objective is to consider NA perspectives on TEK when analyzing relationships between health and the environment and to look at how these may be applied to address this gap.Discussion:The authors—the majority of whom are NA scholars—highlight two research areas that consider health from a TEK perspective: food systems and knowledge of medicinal plants. This research has yielded data, methods, and knowledge that have helped Indigenous communities better define and reduce health risks and protect local natural food resources, and this TEK approach may prove of value to EHS research.Conclusion:NA perspectives on TEK resulting from the HCRG workshops provide an opportunity for developing more accurate Indigenous health indicators (IHI) reflecting the conceptualizations of health maintained in these communities. This approach has the potential to bridge the scientific study of exposure with methods addressing a tribal perspective on the sociocultural determinants of health, identifying potential new areas of inquiry in EHS that afford nuanced evaluations of exposures and outcomes in tribal communities. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP1944

The Limits of the Neighborhood Effect: Contextual Uncertainties in Geographic, Environmental Health, and Social Science Research

This article draws on recent studies to argue that researchers need to be attentive to the limits of the neighborhood effect as conventionally understood. It highlights the complexities of contextual influences and the challenges in accurately representing and measuring individual exposures to those influences. Specifically, it discusses the idiosyncratic and multidimensional nature of contextual effects, the temporal complexities of contextual influences, the frame dependence of exposure measures, selective mobility bias, and publication bias in neighborhood effects research. It also discusses how contextual uncertainties could be mitigated in future research (e.g., through collecting and using high-resolution space–time data and moving toward frame-independent exposure measures with results that are not affected by how data are organized with respect to space and time).

NTP/NIEHS Global Contributions to Toxicologic Pathology.

National Toxicology Program (NTP) pathologists are engaged in important initiatives that have significant global impact. These initiatives build on its leadership in pathology peer review and publications in the areas of toxicologic pathology, clinical pathology, and laboratory animal medicine. Over the past decade, NTP/National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences research initiatives have focused on cancer and noncancer hazard identification, with the goal of understanding cellular and molecular mechanisms of disease. New initiatives of significant global impact include the web-based nonneoplastic lesion atlas and an NTP partnership with international scientists to investigate molecular mechanisms at the whole genome level, which will be used to inform potential mechanisms of environmental exposures in human cancers. Also, we are dedicated to contributing to pathology and toxicology organizations through service on executive committees and editorial boards, participating in international projects and symposiums, and providing training for future leaders in toxicologic pathology. Herein, we provide highlights of our global contributions.

The Value of Traditional Ecological Knowledge for the Environmental Health Sciences and Biomedical Research.

Background:Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is a term, relatively new to Western science, that encompasses a subset of traditional knowledge maintained by Indigenous nations about the relationships between people and the natural environment. The term was first shared by tribal elders in the 1980s to help raise awareness of the importance of TEK. TEK has become a construct that Western scientists have increasingly considered for conducting culturally relevant research with Tribal nations.Objectives:The authors aim to position TEK in relation to other emerging schools of thought, that is, concepts such as the exposome, social determinants of health (SDoH), and citizen science, and to explore TEK’s relevance to environmental health research. This article provides examples of successful application of TEK principles in federally funded research when implemented with respect for the underlying cultural context and in partnership with Indigenous communities.Discussion:Rather than treating TEK as an adjunct or element to be quantified or incorporated into Western scientific studies, TEK can instead ground our understanding of the environmental, social, and biomedical determinants of health and improve our understanding of health and disease. This article provides historical and recent examples of how TEK has informed Western scientific research.Conclusions:This article provides recommendations for researchers and federal funders to ensure respect for the contributions of TEK to research and to ensure equity and self-determination for Tribal nations who participate in research. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP858

GEOHealth - The Caribbean Consortium for Research in Environmental and Occupational Health: Environmental Health Science Research Training in Suriname

GEOHealth - The Caribbean Consortium for Research in Environmental and Occupational Health: Environmental Health Science Research Training in Suriname

The Pivotal Role of the Social Sciences in Environmental Health Sciences Research.

Environmental health sciences research seeks to elucidate environmental factors that put human health at risk. A primary aim is to develop strategies to prevent or reduce exposures and disease occurrence. Given this primary focus on prevention, environmental health sciences research focuses on the populations most at risk such as communities of color and/or low socioeconomic status. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences research programs incorporate the principles of Community-Based Participatory Research to study health disparities. These programs promote community engagement, culturally appropriate communications with a variety of stakeholders, and consideration of the social determinants of health that interact with environmental factors to increase risk. Multidisciplinary research teams that include social and behavioral scientists are essential to conduct this type of research. This article outlines the history of social and behavioral research funding at National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and offers examples of National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences-funded projects that exemplify the value of social science to the environmental health sciences.

Measuring Partnership Activities: Partnerships in Environmental Public Health Evaluation Metrics Manual

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) has had a long-standing commitment to facilitate and engage community groups in environmental health science research. In 2008, the NIEHS established the Partnerships for Environmental Public Health (PEPH) program to formalize our commitment to outline a coordinated vision for community and academic partnerships. Since then, > 400 grantees have participated in activities designed to foster net-working among grantees within the various NIEHS programs, including webinars and workshops on communicating PEPH findings and translating research to public health policy. A key tenet of the PEPH is community engagement. In response to an NIEHS Request for Information in 2008, the community shared concerns about the lack of evaluation capacity and the need for tools and approaches to develop project specific evaluation metrics for public health–related program areas. In response, the NIEHS developed the PEPH Evaluation Metrics Manual (NIEHS 2012b) with significant input from PEPH grantees, program staff, and experts in the field, including input from > 250 individuals at > 30 professional meetings. Evaluation of PEPH programs provides useful bene-fits to grantees, including the ability to a) identify program successes; b) determine whether a project worked and why (or why not); c) identify areas for program improvement and increased efficiency; d) describe expenditures and justify a need for additional funding; e) recognize and respond to public needs and wants; f ) identify new audiences and applications for projects; and g) prioritize research and plan for the future. Evaluation also may help grantees find allies in other agencies, services, or sectors; publicize achievements in communities; and inform policy and other decision making. Evaluation metrics also provide a means for the NIEHS to evaluate the success of individual projects and the PEPH program as a whole. Typical approaches to evaluating research outcomes involve analyzing publications. However, because many PEPH programs do not publish findings related to their community engagement, we worked with grantees and community members to identify appropriate metrics to measure and demonstrate success in five areas that are common to many PEPH grantees: Partnering (working with other organizations to conduct environmental public health activities) Leveraging (using the resources already available to a project to obtain additional resources) Disseminating findings (providing information about environmental public health issues and results of PEPH research) Training (developing programs that teach researchers, community members, workers, students, and others strategies for reducing hazardous environ-mental exposures) Capacity building (performing activities that improve an organization’s ability to achieve its mission). For each of these five areas, the NIEHS developed an illustrative logic model to demonstrate connections among project activities, outputs, and impacts; > 80 examples of metrics for each activity, output, and impact are provided as examples for grantees developing metrics for evaluating the progress and achievements of their own programs. We present the partnership logic model (Figure 1; NIEHS 2012b) to illustrate how metrics can be developed from a logic model. When developing program logic models, it can be helpful to begin by working with partners to identify and articulate the desired impacts of the program. Once partners agree about “where they want to go” (impacts), discussions of “how to get there” (activities) naturally follow. Then partners can determine “how will we know we are there?” (outputs and metrics). The nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs in the answers to these questions then serve as the basis for metrics. Examples of metrics from grantee programs that address components of the partnership logic model include: Demonstrating success at identifying partners (activity 1), the University of Cincinnati’s anti-idling campaign provided a description of the partners involved and the resources they bring to the project: Cincinnati Public Schools provided access to students and schools; the Cincinnati Health Department provided nursing services; a councilwoman provided credibility and the ability to attract attention to the project; and the Hamilton County Department of Environmental Services provided training and information to Cincinnati Public School staff and students. Demonstrating their success in involving community partners in research, the University of Florida, the Farmworker Association of Florida (FWAF), and Best Start Inc. (a social marketing research firm) described how partners were involved in the Together for Agricultural Safety Project (output 4). Members of the FWAF helped develop and lead focus groups and provided input into the survey development; researchers from the University of Florida and Best Start Inc. collected data; and 382 farm-workers provided data. All three partners also contributed to an article summarizing the process by which the project was implemented (Flocks et al. 2001). The Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center is a collaborative partnership that includes the University of Michigan Schools of Public Health, Nursing, and Social Work; the Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion; eight community-based organizations; and the Henry Ford Health System. To demon-strate their success at expanding research collaborations, they provided details of the additional research opportunities that were generated as a result of the partnership (impact 3). These research opportunities included four grants from the NIEHS: $5 million for establishing a Children’s Environmental Health Sciences Center; $2.4 million to conduct the Community Organizing Network for Environmental Health; $2.5 million for a household intervention to reduce asthma triggers; and $2.5 million for an epidemiologic project to characterize the effect of roadway-associated air pollution on the exacerbation of asthma in children. PEPH grantees are encouraged to adapt metrics to fit the unique characteristics of their communities, and those with multi-site initiatives may want to identify metrics that are applicable for all sites. Although the PEPH Evaluation Metrics Manual was designed with PEPH grantees in mind, it may be useful to community groups, advocates, and others working to address environmental public health issues. The principles outlined in the manual also may be useful to those interested in measuring the success of basic research programs. We anticipate that the PEPH manual will be a living document that we will update periodically. Opportunities for expansion include new evaluation topics (e.g., cost–benefit analyses and econometric evaluations), as well as new approaches used in programs (e.g., social media) and new examples of metrics drawn from the ever-expanding network of PEPH grantees. Program staff have been conducting training related to evaluation metrics and developing stand-alone materials that will be publically available through the PEPH website (NIEHS 2012a). NIEHS staff is available to conduct webinars related to the PEPH Evaluation Metrics Manual. We encourage those interested in learning more about the manual or about developing metrics for their program to explore the manual and contact the authors with any questions or concerns.

PANEL ON “COMMUNICATION, TERRORISM AND HOMELAND SECURITY: NEW RESEARCH, RECENT EXPERIENCE, EMERGING CHALLENGES”

* Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Disaster and Emergency Communication Research Unit, The University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, 1665 University Boulevard, Room 530, Birmingham, AL 35294-0022. For correspondence contact the author at the above address, or email at [email protected]. (Manuscript accepted 21 May 2011).

Completing the circle: a model for effective community review of environmental health research.

While it is well understood that multiple and cumulative environmental stressors negatively impact health at the community level, existing ethical research review procedures are designed to protect individual research participants but not communities. Increasing concerns regarding the ethical conduct of research in general and environmental and genetic research in particular underscore the need to expand the scope of current human participant research regulations and ethical guidelines to include protections for communities. In an effort to address this issue, West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT), a nonprofit, community-based environmental justice organization in New York City that has been involved in community-academic partnerships for the past decade, used qualitative interview data to develop a pilot model for community review of environmental health science research.

Industrial Farming: Implications for Human Health, with Peter Thorne

Industrial-scale farms known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have become an increasing focal point for environmental health research because of their emissions and concerns they may contribute to antibiotic resistance, adverse community impacts, and zoonotic disease outbreaks. They are also a source of political controversy in states including North Carolina and Missouri where government agencies are grappling with decisions about CAFO monitoring and permitting. In this podcast, Peter Thorne describes some of the health concerns surrounding these facilities. Thorne, director of the NIEHS-funded Environmental Health Sciences Research Center at the University of Iowa, is the lead author of an EHP mini-monograph on environmental health effects of CAFOs.

TRC: Mission Accomplished

Toxicogenomics is no longer in its infancy. The field is poised to make significant contributions to risk assessment, drug screening and development, clinical diagnosis and therapy, and policy decision making. That was the general consensus that emerged from the final meeting of the Toxicogenomics Research Consortium (TRC), a multicenter collaborative initiative established by the NIEHS in 2001 to serve as an extramural arm of the institute’s National Center for Toxicogenomics (NCT). The conference, “Empowering Environmental Health Sciences Research with New Technologies,” was held 4–6 December 2006 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and was sponsored by the NIEHS, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) Center for Environmental Health and Susceptibility, the UNC-CH Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Agilent Technologies, which manufactures microarrays along with other measurement tools. The meeting included presentations from grantees in two other recent efforts to support the development of applications of the “omics” technologies: the NIEHS Functional Proteomics Initiative, which was established in 2002, and the NIEHS/NIAAA Metabolomics Initiative, a consortium started in 2005 by the NIEHS and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The conference began with a symposium recognizing the contributions to the field of toxicogenomics by the NCT and its director, Raymond Tennant. Tennant championed what has proven to be a vital concept in toxicogenomics: “phenotypic anchoring,” or the idea that the results of microarray experiments must be associated with particular phenotypes to be of informative value. Richard Paules, a senior scientist in the NIEHS Laboratory of Molecular Toxicology, elaborates: “In order to understand the plethora of gene expression changes, where you’ve got five or ten thousand changes in a particular response [or] disease state, . . . it’s important to make a correlation, a link between a particular biological event and a group of gene expression changes. The linkage can then be tested, and subsequent experiments conducted in a hypothesis-driven manner.”

RTP Leaders Unite to Advance Environmental Health

Vol. 114, No. 9 EnvironewsOpen AccessRTP Leaders Unite to Advance Environmental Health Luz Claudio Luz Claudio Search for more papers by this author Published:1 September 2006https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.114-a524AboutSectionsPDF ToolsDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InReddit When North Carolina’s Research Triangle Foundation provided 509 acres of land to the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office in 1967 as the site for the newly established Division of Environmental Health Sciences, the area was probably not foreseen as a hub for companies, institutions, and government agencies working on issues related to environmental health. Then, just two years later, the Division of Environmental Health Sciences was elevated to institute status to form the NIEHS. Since that time, the area now known as Research Triangle Park (RTP) has expanded into a nucleus of intellectual activity in environmental health sciences that includes the National Toxicology Program, the laboratories of the U.S. EPA, the CIIT Centers for Health Research, and environmental research programs at Duke University, the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, and North Carolina State University, among other institutions and nonprofit organizations.These organizations are now taking advantage of a unique opportunity to solidify RTP’s reputation as the epicenter for environmental health science research in the United States by creating a forum for discussion and debate of the important public health issues related to environment and health. Prominent individuals in the RTP community—including former North Carolina governor James Hunt, former NIEHS director Kenneth Olden, and William Roper, chief executive officer of the North Carolina Health Care System and former head of the CDC—have been working to bring thought leaders together on these issues in a new initiative that has been dubbed the Research Triangle Environmental Health Collaborative.The mission of the collaborative is to connect organizations and institutions; link research and policy; and join government, academia, industry, and public interest groups for the purpose of mutually considering, discussing, and debating the grand challenges in environmental health at the regional, national, and international levels. Says Olden, “When I came to the NIEHS many years ago, I realized the talent base we have here in RTP. The major environmental health research institutions are all here, the intellectual resources of the major research universities, and also the companies that have evolved around this. No place else in the world can boast this concentration of minds working on environmental public health issues. So we thought that it follows that if you can help to focus these talents in the areas where perhaps the most change can be effected, real progress might be made.”An Idea Made RealAccording to David P. Brown, director of scientific research program development for Constella Group, a professional health consulting service that is facilitating the effort with support from the NIEHS, the collaborative has applied for nonprofit 501(c)(3) status. “Once created, the collaborative will provide those in government, academia, and the private sector with a neutral forum to host candid discussions and to provide advice on the most significant issues facing environmental health and related public policy,” says Brown.“Constella is proud to work with the NIEHS and other organizations and be at the genesis of creating a forum to discuss exciting, ground-breaking issues in environmental health,” says Donald A. Holzworth, Constella Group’s chairman and CEO. “By articulating this vision for a public–private partnership focused on environmental health, we have a unique opportunity to participate in creating a global forum to build awareness and education around these critical issues.”Olden chairs the collaborative’s Executive Committee, which currently comprises representatives from academia and the private sector. The other members include William Greenlee, president and CEO of the CIIT Centers for Health Research; David Hinton, Nicholas Professor of Environmental Quality at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences; Ernest Hodgson, a professor of environmental and molecular toxicology at North Carolina State University; Rich Cohn, vice president of the Center for Health Research at Constella Group; and Edward Baker, director of the Institute for Public Health at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill.Committee members hope that leaders of nonprofit organizations and public interest groups in RTP will join the collaborative as well.A First StepThe collaborative has already received $30,000 in initial funding from the NIEHS to host its first Environmental Health Summit, planned for the spring of 2007 in RTP. This meeting will bring together environmental and public health leaders from around the world to identify today’s foremost environmental health challenges. Participants, who may include former EPA administrators Carol Browner and William Reilly, will also seek to address these challenges from a solution-oriented perspective, emphasizing research needs, policy changes, education, and prevention/intervention programs.The Environmental Health Summit is just one activity through which the collaborative plans to address important issues. The collaborative will help facilitate the goals of the NIEHS and the EPA by organizing meetings, helping to attract new scientists, and serving as a clearinghouse for environmental health science–related activities and events in the RTP area. The collaborative may also provide expert advice and review as well as a neutral forum for discussions on science and policy.Other activities will include promoting RTP as a desirable scientific, research, and business destination in an effort to lure more environmental health science organizations to the area, as well as supporting the convergence of government, academia, and nonprofit interests to generate an attractive economic environment for business growth for private companies. The group will showcase academic institutions’ key environmental programs, including those supported by the federal government, and will facilitate interaction between academia, government, nonprofit foundations, public interest groups, and private organizations in a collegial environment. The collaborative also plans to facilitate multi-partner efforts in grant development to generate new research programs. Finally, the collaborative will serve as an interorganizational think tank comprising environmental, health, and policy leaders from associations, foundations, and nonprofit organizations.For additional information about the collaborative, please contact David Brown at [email protected]com.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 114, No. 9 September 2006Metrics About Article Metrics Publication History Originally published1 September 2006Published in print1 September 2006 Financial disclosuresPDF download License information EHP is an open-access journal published with support from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health. All content is public domain unless otherwise noted. Note to readers with disabilities EHP strives to ensure that all journal content is accessible to all readers. 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