environmental health

Teaming Up to Tackle Engineering Challenges

Innovation Awards Accelerate Development of New Research Techniques

scientist working with a robotic arm

Scientists spend years, even decades, intensely studying a specific disease or biological system, an approach that yields unrivaled knowledge. However, many important scientific questions require a deep understanding of several subjects. As a result, the IRP has numerous programs dedicated to encouraging scientists with different areas of expertise to work together.

One such program is the NIH Director’s Challenge Innovation Awards, which funds innovative, high-impact projects that require the cooperation of researchers in more than one of NIH’s Institutes and Centers. This year, the program selected six promising proposals with one foot in the disciplines of biology and medicine and another in engineering or the physical sciences.

IRP’s Shannon Zenk Elected to the National Academy of Medicine

Nursing Research Leader Sheds Light on How Neighborhoods Influence Health

Dr. Shannon Zenk

When you think about public health, city planning might not be the first thing that comes to mind. Yet where we live — the quality of the buildings, the availability of places to walk and play safely, and the types of schools and stores in the neighborhood — can profoundly affect our health. This relationship has been emphasized by the COVID-19 pandemic, as close, stuffy living conditions, the need to take public transportation to essential jobs, and inequities in access to testing and vaccination sites all contributed to the larger reduction in life expectancy for Black and Latino Americans compared to Caucasians over the last two years.

Shannon N. Zenk, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.N., F.A.A.N., Director of the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2021 for her research into how neighborhood characteristics affect the health of residents and contribute to the health disparities seen between communities with different racial and ethnic makeups and different levels of income.

Graduate Student Symposium Spotlights Future Scientists

IRP’s Ph.D. and Medical Students Present Research at Virtual Event

Khiem Lam

The IRP isn’t concerned only with discovering the secrets of how our bodies work and developing new therapies to treat disease. Senior scientists and many other employees at NIH also are actively involved in training the next generation of researchers. One place where the benefits of those efforts is strikingly clear is at NIH’s annual Graduate Student Research Symposium, where graduate students performing research in NIH labs show of the fruits of their partnerships with IRP researchers.

On February 16 and 17, more than 100 of the IRP’s graduate students presented their work virtually at the 18th edition of the event. These young scientists discussed the results of studies on a huge range of topics, from how hunger changes during pregnancy to how viruses cause cancer. Read on to learn about a small sampling of the projects they’ve been hard at work on.

Postdoc Profile: An Engineer Among Epidemiologists

Dr. Shuai Xie Brings a New Perspective to Research on Environmental Exposures

Dr. Shuai Xie

“Engineering is about solving problems,” says IRP postdoctoral fellow Shuai Xie, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Dr. Xie speaks from experience. One of the problems she was interested in solving during her graduate studies in chemical and environmental engineering was how to accurately measure the way airborne contaminants adhere to and release from indoor building materials. This is a particularly important problem to solve because those interactions can affect measurements of indoor air pollution, potentially rendering them inaccurate. Of course, Dr. Xie was not trying to solve this engineering problem for its own sake; accurately gauging contamination of indoor air is important for human health.

Rare Genetic Variants Underlie Susceptibility to Reproductive Disruption

IRP Study Could Help Identify Women at Greater Risk for Fertility Problems

pregnancy test

As the calendar page turned from 2020 to 2021, many people adopted major lifestyle changes like healthier eating or significantly increasing their physical activity. While these New Year’s resolutions will likely improve their overall health, they could also wreak havoc on the reproductive cycles of a small set of women. New IRP research sheds light on the genetic factors that make some women susceptible to diet- or exercise-induced disruptions to their reproductive systems.

Research Symposium Celebrates Graduate Student Science

Event Spotlights Students Completing Their Ph.D. Research in IRP Labs

NIH graduate student John Fenimore

The NIH provides an extraordinarily rich environment for learning and honing the skills needed to pursue a scientific career. It’s no wonder, then, that Ph.D. students from institutions all across the United States and the rest of the world come here to conduct their dissertation research under the mentorship of the IRP’s many renowned investigators.

Nearly 150 of those students presented the fruits of their scientific work at the NIH’s 16th annual Graduate Student Research Symposium on Thursday, February 20. The insights they have produced on topics from cancer to autoimmune disease to environmental contaminants were supremely impressive and will likely contribute to important improvements in medical care in the future. For anyone who missed this exciting event, read on to learn about a few of the many research projects that were on display.

Honoring a "Distinguished Intellect" this Earth Day

We honor Dr. Hans L. Falk (1919 -1985) this Earth Day (April 22, but celebrated today, April 23, at NIH) for his significant contributions to the field of environmental health science as both a scientist and an administrator.

Hans Falk