Pilot Project Program

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Situated in the heart of Detroit, the Wayne State University "Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors" (CURES) is focused on understanding how exposures to stressors that are prevalent in the urban industrialized environment, both chemical and non-chemical, impact human health. Special emphasis is placed on life windows of heightened susceptibility to environmental exposure and vulnerable persons at risk for environmental disease (e.g., children and adults of low socio-economic status, older adults, immigrants, refugees, and first responders). The hypothesis of the CURES Center is that diseases that compromise the quality of life in an industrialized urban environment, such as Detroit, occur as a consequence of dynamic interactions among an individual's genetic and epigenetic make-up, nutritional status, and environmental stressors, which include chronic low-level toxicant exposures as well as psychosocial and physical stressors, that re-program key cellular regulatory networks to favor pathogenesis. Four disease-oriented research interest groups serve as interdisciplinary hubs for population and basic scientists and community members interested in the role of environmental exposure in (1) immune disorders, (2) metabolic disease, (3) cancer, and (4) mental health disturbances. The Transdisciplinary/Translational Integration team (TRANSIT) works with community advisors to apply an integrated transdisciplinary approach to solving environmental health problems. The Integrative Health Sciences Facility Core guides Center researchers transitioning toward translational research studies and provides stem cell and human biospecimen services. The Exposure Signatures Facility Core enables Center members to apply integrated, state-of-the-art genomic, epigenomic, proteomic, and bioinformatic strategies to environmental health science research. The Community Outreach and Engagement Core provides for bi-directional exchange between the urban community at risk for environmental illness and Center members. CURES also sponsors programs focused on career and new project development. The CURES Center is a dynamic transdisciplinary research team that is dedicated to environmental disease prevention and creating a cleaner and healthier living and working environment in the city of Detroit.