Toxic Substances in the Environment

加州大学伯克利分校超级基金基础研究项目的目标是“提高对暴露与疾病之间关系的理解；提供更好的人类和生态风险评估；降低清理成本；并制定一系列预防策略，以改善和保护公众健康、生态系统和环境。”该项目以加州大学伯克利分校和劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室在工程、化学和分子流行病学方面的优势为基础，由六个相互关联的基础和应用研究项目组成。该项目的总体主题是“应用功能基因组学、蛋白质组学、转录组学和纳米技术，更好地检测环境中的砷、汞、苯、多环芳烃、三氯乙烯和其他超级基金优先考虑的化学物质；评价它们对人类健康的影响，特别是对儿童等易感人群的影响；修复它们的存在，降低它们的毒性。个别项目的主题包括利用蛋白质组学和转录组学研究化学物质暴露在引起儿童白血病中的作用；采用功能基因组方法寻找易感基因；应用新型生物标志物研究砷对健康的影响通过应用基因组技术和纳米技术改进有毒化学品的生物修复，开发环境中化学物种的纳米级传感器。毒物基因组学实验室核心和计算生物学核心将帮助研究人员创建用于流行病学和风险研究的工具。新的研究翻译核心将促进研究人员与政府受众之间的深入讨论，并产生新的举措，以增进对新兴研究领域通过政策、干预措施和个人行动对公共卫生保护的重要性和适用性的理解。培训核心将培养研究生和博士后学生进行多学科研究，研究环境因素对健康的影响，并制定技术解决办法，防止或减轻超级基金优先化学品造成的危害。

The goal of the Superfund Basic Research Program at the University of California, Berkeley is "to improve understanding of the relationship between exposure and disease; provide better human and ecological risk assessments; lower cleanup costs; and develop a range of prevention strategies to improve and protect public health, ecosystems and the environment." The Program builds on the strengths of UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in engineering, chemistry and molecular epidemiology, and consists of six interrelated basic and applied research projects. The overall theme of the program is "The application of functional genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics, and nanotechnology to better detect arsenic, mercury, benzene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, trichloroethylene and other Superfund priority chemicals in the environment; evaluate their effects on human health, especially the health of susceptible populations such as children; and remediate their presence and reduce their toxicity. Themes of the individual projects include using proteomics and transcriptomics to study the role of chemical exposure in causing childhood leukemia; taking a functional genomic approach to finding susceptibility genes; applying novel biomarkers to study the health effects of arsenic; improving bioremediation of toxic chemicals through the application of -omic technologies and nanotechnology, and developing nano-scale sensors of chemical species in the environment. A toxicogenomic laboratory core and a computational biology core will assist researchers in creating tools for use in epidemiological and risk research. The new research translation core will facilitate intensive discussions between investigators and government audiences, and generate new initiatives to increase understanding of the significance and applicability of emerging areas of research to public health protection through policy, interventions, and individual actions. The training core will prepare graduate and post-doctoral students to conduct multidisciplinary research into the effects of environmental factors on health, and to develop technological solutions to prevent or mitigate the harm resulting from Superfund priority chemicals.