Environmental Health Sciences Program
This program explores chemical mechanisms of toxicity and disease processes. It explores the pathogenesis, prevention and treatment of diseases of environmental etiology (e.g., lung and airway disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, reproductive and developmental disorders, obesity and cardiovascular disease). Emphasis will be placed on training in the following areas:
- molecular toxicology;
- environmental and occupational health;
- molecular epidemiology (gene-environment interactions);
- toxicogenomics;
- toxicoproteomics;
- biomarkers;
- epigenetic mechanisms; and,
- population-based and clinical/translational research
Students will learn about the National Toxicology Program, the NIH-wide Gene-Environment Initiative. Course work and rotations will equip students to perform research across discipline.
Graduates of the program will be prepared for careers in toxicology, risk-assessment, environmental and occupational health sciences, and may place in academia, the pharmaceutical industry, consumer-product industry, or governmental agencies (e.g. EPA, CDC, NIEHS, NCI and NIOSH). Matriculants of the program will be encouraged to become board certified in toxicology (Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicologists (DABT)). Research rotations are available in the following areas:
- Protein modification in neurodegenerative disease
- Oxidant stress and cardiovascular disease
- Lung cancer and exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
- Endocrine and reproduction disruption and use of transgenics
- Mutagenesis of tumor suppressor genes by reactive oxygen
- Aberrant signal transduction and epigenetic effects
- Phase I and II enzymes and toxicant exposure: function and gene regulation
- Molecular epidemiology of environmental disease
- Mass spectral methods to validate biomarkers
- Toxicogenomics (genomic profiling following toxicant insult)
- Toxicoproteomics (proteome changes following toxicant insult)
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Use of toxicants to probe disease mechanism
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