Future News Headline: Scientists explore the real world, and discover there's mold growing in it - Who knew?

[Guest guest]

NIEHS Awards Discover Grants The National Institute of Environmental Health

Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health, is awarding a total

of $6.8 million for the first year of funding to three new research centers

called DISCOVER — Disease Investigation Through Specialized Clinically-Oriented

Ventures in Environmental Research. The new DISCOVER centers are expected to

bridge the gap between basic research and clinical treatment of diseases caused

by environmental factors.

" The DISCOVER centers will help to define the role of environmental agents in

the initiation and progression of human disease and develop new ways to both

prevent and treat disease, " said Dennis Lang, Ph.D., interim director, NIEHS

Division of Extramural Research and Training, as he announced the new awards.

" The potential impact of the research that these three centers will be

conducting is enormous. "

The NIEHS launched the DISCOVER program in January 2006 when the initial grant

opportunities were announced. The centers reflect an integrated research

approach expected to advance our understanding of how the environment interacts

with biological processes to either preserve health or cause disease by bringing

together laboratory research and population based studies.

" The research being supported through this program is unique in that each

DISCOVER center will support projects that will be patient-or clinically

oriented, while also looking at the mechanisms of how certain environmental

factors influence disease etiology, pathogenesis, susceptibility, progression,

and prognosis, " said Balshaw, Ph.D., one of the scientists at NIEHS who

helped develop the program.

Balshaw points out that the new centers reflect the commitment of NIEHS to

children's health research. " Two of the DISCOVER centers are direct extensions

of previously funded Centers for Children's Environmental Health. The DISCOVER

centers will focus their efforts on understanding the clinical impact of

environmental exposures in children and extending that research to improve

diagnosis and clinical intervention. We believe this work will also inform

public policy and community education aimed at reducing the burden of children's

asthma, " Balshaw said.

The three new centers are:

s Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore; N.

Breysse, Ph. D. Breysse and his collaborators will form a new DISCOVER Center

called the Center for Childhood Asthma in the Urban Environment. This group will

examine how indoor and outdoor exposures to particulate matter and allergens may

impact the airways of asthmatic children. African-American children living in

inner cities often are disproportionately impacted by asthma because of

excessive indoor and outdoor pollutants. The researchers will be working closely

with the family members and others in the community as they conduct this

research.

Columbia University School of Public Health, New York; Frederica Perera, Dr.

PH. Perera and her collaborators will focus their research efforts on when and

how common air pollutants from traffic and other combustion sources including

diesel exhaust can affect the lungs of children. The Columbia Center for

Children's Environmental Health DISCOVER grant proposes to develop community

partnerships and outreach to regulatory policy for improved disease prevention

as well as develop biomarkers of exposure and disease progression and improved

therapies for children's asthma based on understanding environmental exposures.

University of Washington, Seattle; Kaufman, M.D., MPH. Kaufman and

colleagues will focus their research efforts on understanding the impact of

traffic-related air pollution on cardiovascular disease. Specifically, the

program will seek to increase understanding of biological pathways related to

inflammation and vascular dysfunction from air pollutants and progression of

cardiovascular disease. The ultimate translation of this program will

potentially advance therapy and cardiovascular disease prevention through

educational outreach opportunities to both the medical and public health

communities.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a component

of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), supports research to understand the

effects of the environment on human health. For more information on

environmental health topics, please visit our website at

http://www.niehs.nih.gov/.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency

— includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department

of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting

and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it

investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare

diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.