URC Environmental Health Funding

Following on the success of the January 2010 Environmental Health Symposium, the URC released a $900,000 request for proposals in September 2010. Eleven Letters of Intent were submitted and through a competitive process, five were invited to submit full proposals. The URC announced in April 2011 that two of these proposals were selected to receive funding.

Michigan’s URC Funding Opportunity in Environmental Health Science
http://urcmich.org/news/110503environmental.html
http://www.researchcorridor.com/features/URCseedfunding050211.aspx

Projects:

The Michigan Bloodspot Environmental Epidemiology Project

Project Objective: The overall mission of the “Michigan Bloodspot Environmental Epidemiology Project” is to promote research that generates insights into the impact of prenatal environmental exposures on adverse adult health outcomes. The project will take advantage of the collective multi-disciplinary expertise and resources of investigators at all three URC Universities (University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University) and the Michigan Biotrust for Health of the Michigan Department of Community Health to pursue innovative and coordinated pilot projects that capitalize on the availability of the neonatal blood spots that are available on every individual born in the state of Michigan since 1984.

The project team anticipates that these pilot projects will have high promise for leading towards much larger projects that will be very competitive for external funding. To achieve this goal, the project will create a collaborative program project team science structure for pursuing its mission and a set of specific aims through an administrative core; a blood spot exposure science core; a blood spot biological science core (genetics, epigenetics, etc.); a human population studies core; and a health informatics core.

Effects of Air Pollution on Asthma

Project Objective: To identify components and sources of ambient Particulate Matter (PM2.5) that exacerbate acute asthma events in two vulnerable Arab American subpopulations (children and elderly). To further determine if PM2.5 samples concurrently collected from this highly industrialized area of Dearborn, Michigan will evoke pathological responses in an allergic asthma animal model in an age dependent manner.