Integrative Health Sciences Facility Core

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Integrative Health Sciences Facility Core Project Summary The Integrative Health Sciences Facility Core (IHSFC) supports human studies of environmental exposures and disease causation and enhances translation of research findings. The goal of the Core is to accelerate the transfer of basic biomedical knowledge from the laboratory to clinical applications in prevention, early detection, new treatments and, ultimately, to prolong and enhance life. The strategies of the IHSFC include expanding population exposure studies from regional cohorts to international cohorts, with emphasis on emerging environmental contaminants, the development of novel statistical methods for the identification of individual and cumulative effects, and the interactions of chemicals in a mixture. The broad sharing of data generated from epidemiological studies is highly desirable to leverage the NIH investment in these studies and advance the field of environmental health science as a whole. Collectively, these new initiatives are aimed at advancing precision medicine-based disease risk assessment, monitoring, prevention and therapies. The overall objectives of the Core for the next five years will be accomplished through 1) expert consultation services in medicine, epidemiology, exposure science, and statistics, 2) sharing resources of cohorts with environmental exposure data and biorepositories, 3) building a core of expertise in analysis of exposure mixtures, 4) informatics tools and 5) Integrative Thinking transdisciplinary workshops that will mesh information from various disciplines for translation to the bedside and public health. Through providing these services and access to technologies, this IHSFC will build capacity for research that integrates basic science with clinical research and public health. The IHSFC will capitalize on the potential for synergy with other CEG components such as the Community Engagement Core (CEC), the Integrated Technologies Support Core (ITSC), Bioinformatics Core and the Pilot Projects Program (PPP) and our CTSA (Center for Clinical and Translational Science and Training, CCTST). The IHSFC strategies are novel as they put emphasis on a transdisciplinary approach to problem solving unanswered questions, notably those of the mechanisms of environmental exposures influencing health. We will maximize the productivity our environmental epidemiology cohorts by showcasing them through multiple venues and building informatics to facilitate access to their unique exposure information, data collection tools and details of resource sharing. With expertise in bioinformatics and statistics, we will build our capacity for examining the health effects of exposure mixtures. Our plans are tightly integrated with those of the ITSC, CEC, Bioinformatics Core and the PPP. Our cadre of internationally recognized environmental epidemiologists and exposure scientists model transdisciplinary research and team science for junior investigators and those new to environmental science, promote use of the capacity building opportunities available through the ITSC and the Bioinformatics Core, and value the new input from the multi-directional partnerships fostered by the CEC.