in Environmental Exposures and Health
CIREEH was designed with the three parallel paths of the NIH Roadmap in mind: 1) research teams of the future (e.g., interdisciplinary research, high-risk research), 2) re-engineering the clinical research enterprise (e.g., improved translation from basic research to clinical application), and 3) new pathways to discovery (e.g., “omics,” bioinformatics and systems thinking). CIREEH holds two major values: 1) a belief that state-of-the-art basic and applied sciences and their associated technologies hold great promise for investigating environmentally related illnesses, and 2) a belief that scientists have an obligation to make their findings accessible and available to the government and the public. “Cells to Cities,” the Center watchwords, express its emphasis on science- and evidence-based research and intervention; inter- and multi-disciplinary work that involves collaborations between basic scientists, public health researchers, scientist/practitioners, and stakeholders; and consideration of diagnostic and treatment interventions stemming from research that can be applied at the individual level in the clinic up to the level of communities.
Our goals include:
1. Implementing an integrated administrative and technological infrastructure that will support: 1) interdisciplinary research and collaboration among center scientists, 2) mechanisms for career development for future leaders in environmental health, environmental medicine and public health, 3) recruitment of established scientists from different disciplines to strengthen and expand transdisciplinary environmental health science research, and 4) existing relationships with Program Projects, Centers, Cores and established cohort population studies at the Boston University Medical Center.
2. Developing specific novel and existing technical methods for application to environmental health research related to the Center’s three areas of interest: 1) imaging technology (neuroimaging, large and small animal NMR imaging, behavioral performance laboratory, cellular imaging, multiplexed flow cytometry), 2) developmental lifespan perspective and the exposure-response relationship (genetics, spatial and mathematical modeling, developmental psychology, qualitative methods, effects of chemical exposures on the developing lung, brain, and immune system), 3) population and community approaches (enhance community involvement in the development of research questions, designs, methods and translation into results and action plans)
3. Developing and expanding of mechanisms for translating and transferring research by recruit and mentor promising young scientists in the field of environmental health sciences and communicating the translational implications of research findings to clinicians, public health professionals, communities, other scientists (including those at other EHS Centers) and governmental agencies