Integrative Environmental Health Sciences Facility Core

INTEGRATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SCIENCES FACILITY CORE ABSTRACT The Integrative Environmental Health Sciences Facility Core (IEHS-FC) acts as the navigator for EDGE Center interdisciplinary research. Here, investigators and trainees connect to Center services and a comprehensive consultation resource emphasizing clinical, translational, and population-based studies. The IEHS-FC facilitates Center member research along the translational continuum. Whether the investigator is involved in basic or experimental sciences, clinical studies or observational population-based studies, the IEHS-FC offers high quality advisement, methods, and resources to enhance EHS research, inform public health policy and practice, and impact individual and population health. The IEHS-FC fosters interdisciplinary team science research throughout the University of Washington by integrating basic sciences research with population-based and clinical EHS research to improve early detection and prevention of environmentally related disorders. The Core also helps to identify collaborative opportunities within the greater NIEHS Core Centers program by promoting and connecting researchers to respond to the EHS Core Centers collaborative research funding opportunities. The IEHS-FC is re-structured with two focus areas in addition to the navigator function. The clinical, translational, and population-based studies focus area remains. Investigators will continue to benefit from services covering study design and execution, clinical and physiological testing, collection and storage of human samples, access to controlled-human exposure facilities, and identifying patient groups and sample repositories. In this renewal, new resources are added to support translational research to address emerging needs in Disaster Research Response (DR2), an emerging focus of the Center. This second focus area supports investigators in the conduct of rigorous, timely, ethical, and safe environmental health disaster research response. The IEHS-FC is the gateway for EDGE Center investigators, fostering interdisciplinary and novel EHS research. Its emphasis on clinical and translational sciences, individual susceptibility factors, and gene-environment interactions are in keeping with the goals of NIEHS to maximize the utilization of human population-based studies in EHS research. By offering expert consultation, research services and appropriate referrals to EDGE Center investigators, the IEHS-FC enhances the interconnectedness of the EDGE Center Facility Cores, the Community Engagement Core (CEC), and other EDGE Center components. By leveraging the outstanding resources of the EDGE Center, the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, the School of Public Health and the broader UW biomedical research community, the IEHS-FC provides an important and valued hub for NIEHS funded investigators at the UW, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, the Center’s community partners, and the local, regional, and national EHS research community.