Core Focus
The core invests significantly in the mentorship of early career trainees with two members as current recipients of NIEHS Outstanding New Environmental Health Scientist (ONES) awards: Phoebe Stapleton and Alison Bernstein. The Pathogenesis of Environmental Core works closely with the Population Exposures and Outcomes Research Core to translate their findings to humans encountering similar exposures and disease from the environment or worksite.
High Priority Toxicants
The Pathogenesis Core aim to tackle legacy pollutants such as environmental metals (e.g., lead, cadmium), dioxins, air pollutants, and particulate matter as well as emerging exposures including flame retardants, micronanoplastics, engineered nanomaterials, PFAS, mycotoxins/microcystins, and wildfire smoke.
Experimental Approaches
Scientists in the Core use an array of experimental approaches to reveal novel mechanisms of toxicant injury. While preclinical safety and proof-of-concept studies are often performed in rodents, Core investigators are leaders in new approach methodologies (NAMs) for hazard identification and mechanistic interrogation. These NAMs include tissue organoids (i.e., human neurospheres), organ cultures (i.e., human placental explants, rodent placental perfusions, ovary follicles), precision cut slices (i.e., rodent and human lungs, rodent placentas), and machine learning models coupled with high throughput in vitro screens.
Technologies
The Pathogenesis Core embraces longstanding approaches to toxicity testing including behavioral assessments, electrophysiology, and histopathology as well as new multi-omics approaches including single cell and spatial transcriptomics, epigenomics, proteomics, and microbiomics.
