Environmental Health Sciences Research Center

University of Iowa College of Public Health

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New Environmental Exposures and Health Fact Sheets

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PFAS and TCE are the two newest fact sheets that have been released by the EHSRC. These resources cover different environmental contaminants and how they affect health (cancer and non-cancer health risks) and what people can do to protect themselves. View all of the fact sheets here on our resources page. The full packet is available as well as each individual contaminant (Arsenic, Atrazine, Glyphosate, Nitrate, PFAS, Radon, and TCE).

 

EHSRC Member Michael Welsh receives prestigious Lasker Award for cystic fibrosis research

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Michael WelshDr. Michael Welsh, Professor of Internal Medicine and longtime EHSRC member, has won the 2025 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for his fundamental research on cystic fibrosis (CF), which paved the way to new therapies that have transformed the health and life expectancy of people with CF.

Lasker Awards, sometimes called “America’s Nobels,” are among the world’s most prestigious biomedical and clinical research awards.

Welsh shares the award with Jesús (Tito) González (formerly, Vertex Pharmaceuticals) and Paul A. Negulescu (Vertex Pharmaceuticals) for their key roles in developing a novel treatment for CF – a triple-drug combination that saves the lives of people with this lethal genetic disease.

Click here to read more about Dr. Welsh’s Lasker Award.

Spotlight on EHSRC’s role in protecting Iowans’ health

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Closeup of a woman farmer with a straw hat on a small tractorThe EHSRC has released a new fact sheet detailing its role in environmental health sciences research aimed at protecting Iowans’ health. Funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the EHSRC is the only environmental health research center in the Great Plains/Midwest region. We focus on pressing state and regional issues including:

  • Protecting people from naturally occurring carcinogens like radon and arsenic
  • Keeping farmers healthy by controlling exposure to dust, fumes, and pesticides
  • Helping people with lung disease adapt to extreme weather and floods

Click here to view the fact sheet

Environmental health sciences research is an economic powerhouse in Iowa, with $2.38 in economic activity for every dollar invested. The economic benefits from EHSRC include:

  • $64.6 M in economic activity generated since 2007
  • Over 100 patents by EHSRC researchers since 2007
  • $9 in additional grants awarded for each $1 invested in our Pilot Grants

Call for proposals – community engaged research lightning talks

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The yearly training titled “Enhancing Your Research with Equitable Community Engagement” is seeking proposals for lightning talks (7-10 mins).

This call is open to anyone in the University of Iowa community (students, staff, faculty, post-docs, community partner) and the topic is community engagement in a Public Health project. The event will be the morning of June 25th.

Please submit your proposal using the qualtrics form by Monday April 21st. https://uiowa.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6ljGTFz3wLtLTng

Proposal components: Title of proposed talk, describe the project (200 words or less), and describe the community engagement component (100 words or less)

People in a classroom sitting at tables with speaker presenting
The 2024 Community Engaged Research training

 

This event is sponsored by the Community Engagement Cores of the Environmental Health Sciences Research Center and Iowa Superfund Research Program.

 

Questions? Email Jackie Curnick at jcurnick@uiowa.edu