Frontiers in Environmental Science and Health (FrESH

This new application seeks NIEHS RISE (R25) sponsorship for our innovative advanced program entitled “Frontiers in Environmental Science and Human Health (FrESH)” to train and mentor promising graduates, medical students, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty in sophisticated technologies in Environmental Health Science research. This proposal is responsive to RFA-ES-20-015 as its main goal is to create educational opportunities for graduate students, medical students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty in areas of environmental health science research pertinent to the NIEHS, while fostering the career development of these students and fellows. A major strength of FrESH is that it draws from a broad and inclusive applicant pool across a wide range of academic institutions. In addition, we plan to recruit talented individuals from institutions of varying sizes and backgrounds. Our target population includes highly motivated and nationally competitive trainees. FrESH offers dynamic training through a series of daily lectures on emerging concepts, extended discussions, laboratory research, workshops, and informal seminars during a week-long summer course. The primary aim is the development of an intensive laboratory-based training for 16 participants per year to educate them in Environmental Health Science and to help launch and sustain their careers. We propose a five-year program to enroll a total of eighty (80) trainees (16 trainees per year) for training at our institution. In summary, FrESH will offer dynamic and sophisticated training courses that consist of daily lectures from leading experts, active learning sessions, and extended discussions on important and emerging topics followed by hands-on laboratory sessions. Examples of topics within FrESH include: Impacts of air pollutants, water pollutants, and common persistent pollutants such as flame retardants and pesticides; gene-environment interactions in driving health outcomes; exposome and lifetime exposure impacts on human health; impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on human exposures to environmental toxicants; and dissemination and implementation strategies to engage health care providers to consider environmental contaminants in diagnoses and treatments.