Register to participate in an upcoming virtual symposium that will focus on innovations relating real-life exposures to chemicals and chemical mixtures to health outcomes. This event has been organized by Dr. Vasantha Padmanabhan, Dr. Rebekah Petroff, and Dr. Deborah Watkins. Visit the M-LEEaD website for bios on our expert speakers, http://mleead.umich.edu/Events.php.
M-LEEaD Community Engagement Core and Integrated Health Sciences Core Webinar Series "Community Action to Promote Healthy Environments" Angela Reyes Executive Director and Founder
Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation
--- Amy Schulz Professor of Health Behavior & Health Education
Associate Director, Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health (CRECH)
--- Stuart Batterman Professor of Environmental Health Sciences
Professor of Global Public Health
Professor of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering
Professor, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Coimbra, Portugal
2/12/2021 - 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM - Zoom M-LEEaD Symposium “Innovations in Relating Real Life Exposures to Chemicals and Chemical Mixtures to Health Outcomes”
2/25/2021 - 10:00 AM - 2:30 PM - Zoom The 26th Annual Environmental Health Sciences Symposium “Resilience in the Face of Crisis: An Environmental Health Perspective”
Cathrine Hoyo Epidemiologist
Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences
Co-Leader of the Integrative Health Sciences Facility Core, CHHE
North Carolina State University
--- Abdul El-Sayed Physician, epidemiologist, activist, and expert in health policy and health inequalities
--- Christopher Golden Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Planetary Health
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
3/9/2021 - 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM - Zoom M-LEEaD Community Engagement Core and Integrated Health Sciences Core Webinar Series “Energy Equity: Health Impact Assessment of Detroit Energy's Integrated Resource Plan”
Michelle Martinez Acting Executive Director and Statewide Coordinator
Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition
--- Carina Gronlund Research Assistant Professor, Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research
--- Tony Reames Assistant Professor of Environmental Justice & Sustainable Systems
University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability
3/23/2021 - 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM - Zoom M-LEEaD Community Engagement Core and Integrated Health Sciences Core Webinar Series “Water and Health”
Monica Lewis-Patrick Co-Founder, President and CEO We the People of Detroit
--- Nadia Gaber Community Research Collective Member We the People of Detroit
--- Emily Kutil Assistant Professor of Architecture Lawrence Technological University
3/30/2021 - 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM - Zoom M-LEEaD Community Engagement Core and Integrated Health Sciences Core Webinar Series “Climate Hazards, Housing and Health in Detroit” Marie O'Neill Professor of Environmental Health Sciences
--- Zachary Rowe Executive Director
Friends of Parkside
Congratulations to Dana Dolinoy, PhD, on being awarded the SOT Leading Edge in Basic Science Award! The award was given in recognition of her work in environmental epigenetics and the resulting effect of her research on toxicology and public health. Dr. Dolinoy has been involved in evaluating the impact of environmental exposures on the pathogenesis of diseases for over 15 years. An internationally recognized leader in the field of environmental epigenetics, Dr. Dolinoy leads innovative research evaluating how the health effects of environmental exposures can be mediated through changes in the epigenome. Within the past five years, Dr. Dolinoy has conducted numerous studies, both in her laboratory and in collaboration with others, to demonstrate how exposure to a variety of environmental chemicals—including bisphenols, phthalates, and metals—can cause specific alterations in the epigenome.
In the newest Partnerships for Environmental Public Health newsletter, Natalie Sampson, PhD, and Amy Schulz, PhD, spoke about their partnership with the Southwest Detroit Community Benefits Coalition to secure a health impact assessment to address community health concerns associated with the Gordie Howe International Bridge.
In a recent NPR article, Bhramar Mukherjee, PhD, shared her expert view on the growing list of restrictions being seen across the country as the USA fights to slow a brutal surge of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. "The lockdown as a strategy, if implemented absolutely correctly, in an ideal utopian world, would be very effective," said Dr. Mukherjee.
The fight for environmental justice has deep roots in Southeast Michigan. Some cultural heritage institutions (like libraries, museums, and archives) have already found meaningful ways to support local environmental justice movements, but there is more that can be done. As museums and libraries reinvent themselves amid Covid-19 and strive to be more responsive to community needs we think that environmental justice concerns should be a priority.
Through this forum they hope to bring together voices and resources across southeastern Michigan in a conversation about how museums and libraries can support local environmental justice work and help provide better access to environmental data (information about the health and condition of the environment). When everyone has access to data and information about the environment, and can understand and apply that information, we can work together to solve environmental and public health problems more effectively. The University of Michigan Museum of Natural History and the University of Michigan Library are just two of many institutions in southeast Michigan that could use their resources to meet the needs of their visitors and communities.
Attention computer scientists, bioinformaticians, data scientists, genome scientists, and environmental toxicologists! EMGS is now accepting submissions for the EMGS Bioinformatics Challenge 2021. They are currently seeking abstracts in any one of the following three areas:
Novel computational approaches including machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) on high-throughput, high-content, exposure-risk assessment, and/or clinical data classification.
Genetic/genomic toxicological applications of model organism databases, including EcoCyc E. coli database, Saccharomyces genome database, WormBase, wFleaBase, Xenbase, and ZFIN.
Predictive modeling with genomic/mutation/epimutation datasets, and/or toxicology databases, including Tox21/ToxCast, Drug Matrix, TG-Gates, Comparative Toxicogenomics Database, and SeqAPASS.
Selected participants will receive a $100 monetary award and present their work in the preliminary round of the competition. It will be held as a virtual symposium in Spring 2021. The finalist teams will be invited to present at the 13th International Conference on Environmental Mutagens in Ottawa, Canada from August 28 – September 2, 2021 (https://www.emgs-us.org/page/about-ottawa) and compete for the grand prize of $1000. Please submit any inquiry to bioinformatics@emgs-us.org.
Please submit a 250-word abstract with a data visualization or conceptual workflow pipeline to bioinformatics@emgs-us.org by February 28th, 2021. You will receive a confirmation email upon submission.
Further information about the challenge can be found here.
STEEP is organizing a new monthly webinar series called “Let’s Talk About PFAS.” Topics will include drinking water, human health, consumer products, and essential uses.
The first of this series will be held on February 3rd and will focus on PFAS chemicals in Cape Cod drinking water. Join STEEP scientists and town officials to learn how Cape Cod is addressing contamination, what the new state regulations mean for water utilities, and what private well owners can do to reduce their exposures. PFAS are a class of harmful chemicals that are widely used in consumer products and in firefighting foams and have been linked with a number of health problems.
Cape Cod is far from alone in grappling with PFAS. Hundreds of communities across the country have been affected by contaminated drinking water, in what has become a national public health crisis. The STEEP virtual event is part of a new monthly webinar series to support not only Cape Cod, but also affected communities nationwide, by sharing information and offering solutions so that communities can better protect themselves. Future topics include how PFAS affect human health, in particular their effects on the immune system and susceptibility to COVID-19, and tackling the source of the problem through safer chemicals and products.
Date: February 3, 2021
“Let’s Talk About PFAS”— webinar on PFAS contaminants in drinking water, organized by the STEEP Superfund Research Program Center and hosted by the Town of Barnstable. Speaker presentations followed by Q&A with the public.
The virtual event is free and open to the public. All are welcome. Register here!
Recent Publications citing M-LEEaD:
Mehdipanah R, Israel BA, Richman A, Allen A, Rowe Z, Gamboa C, Schulz AJ. Urban HEART Detroit: the Application of a Health Equity Assessment Tool. J Urban Health. 2021 Jan 4:1–12. doi: 10.1007/s11524-020-00503-0. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33398612; PMCID: PMC7781400.
Svoboda LK, Wang K, Jones TR, Colacino JA, Sartor MA, Dolinoy DC. Sex-Specific Alterations in Cardiac DNA Methylation in Adult Mice by Perinatal Lead Exposure. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Jan 12;18(2):577. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18020577. PMID: 33445541; PMCID: PMC7826866.
Ashrap P, Watkins DJ, Milne GL, Ferguson KK, Loch-Caruso R, Fernandez J, Rosario Z, Vélez-Vega CM, Alshawabkeh A, Cordero JF, Meeker JD. Maternal Urinary Metal and Metalloid Concentrations in Association with Oxidative Stress Biomarkers. Antioxidants (Basel). 2021 Jan 15;10(1):114. doi: 10.3390/antiox10010114. PMID: 33467519; PMCID: PMC7830802.
Park SK, Sack C, Sirén MJ, Hu H. Environmental Cadmium and Mortality from Influenza and Pneumonia in U.S. Adults. Environ Health Perspect. 2020 Dec;128(12):127004. doi: 10.1289/EHP7598. Epub 2020 Dec 16. PMID: 33325772; PMCID: PMC7739956.
McCabe CF, Padmanabhan V, Dolinoy DC, Domino SE, Jones TR, Bakulski KM, Goodrich JM. Maternal environmental exposure to bisphenols and epigenome-wide DNA methylation in infant cord blood. Environ Epigenet. 2020 Dec 23;6(1):dvaa021. doi: 10.1093/eep/dvaa021. PMID: 33391824; PMCID: PMC7757124.
Neier K, Montrose L, Chen K, Malloy MA, Jones TR, Svoboda LK, Harris C, Song PXK, Pennathur S, Sartor MA, Dolinoy DC. Short- and long-term effects of perinatal phthalate exposures on metabolic pathways in the mouse liver. Environ Epigenet. 2020 Dec 23;6(1):dvaa017. doi: 10.1093/eep/dvaa017. PMID: 33391822; PMCID: PMC7757125.
Click here for a PDF with useful information about NIH Public Access Policy regarding citing the center grant.
Per NIH grants policy, all publications, press releases, and other documents relevant to research funded by the center must include a specific acknowledgement of support. For the EHS Core Center, this statement may read:
“Support for this research was provided by grant P30ES017885 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.”
