Environmental Health Sciences Research Center
University of Iowa College of Public Health
Congratulations to EHSRC member Aliasger Salem for a recent R21 award from NIEHS. This proposal will develop a CaMKIIN-loaded nanoparticle-based therapy that can rapidly mitigate the ROS species in the lung following chlorine exposure. Other researchers participating in this project include Peter Thorne, Andrea Dodd, and Isabella Grumbach. The Pulmonary Toxicology Facility of the EHSRC will provide support for the animal studies under this project.
The Community Engagement Core is pleased to announce the Science Café line up! Visit the webpage for more details and sign up links.
With $500,000 in funding from the OVPR Interdisciplinary Scholars awards program, an interdisciplinary team will start work on a new project at the intersection of climate, the environment, and health. The award is sponsored by the Research Development Office within the Office of the Vice President for Research.
The project team includes researchers from the College of Public Health, Carver College of Medicine, and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Hans-Joachim Lehmler, professor of occupational and environmental health and director of the Environmental Health Sciences Research Center, leads the project.
“The Interdisciplinary Scholars program is a useful tool for fostering cross-collegiate, interdisciplinary research within the University,” said Aaron Kline, director of the Research Development Office. “Interdisciplinary approaches push the boundaries of scientific research and are vital for finding solutions to ever-pressing societal challenges. These awards provide our researchers a mechanism for ambitiously catalyzing and/or coalescing campus researchers to undertake societally impactful research together.”
The team will investigate the effect of the diverse environmental stressors affected by climate change on the unique health challenges of rural people.
“Climate change compounds existing environmental health challenges and disparities facing rural populations,” said Lehmler.
Through recruitment and mentorship, the team will assemble a diverse group of scientists interested in climate change and health research. Together, they will establish an administrative structure to advance and assess thematic activities, integrate data, and translate research knowledge toward improving health in Iowa and the nation.
The project’s leadership team includes:
“In the last few months, the northern hemisphere has been baking under unprecedented heat,” said Kline. “This award is an important, and timely, investment in research aimed at identifying evidence-based solutions for addressing health outcomes associated with unprecedented climate events such as extreme heat,” says Kline. “I’m excited that we are able to provide support to these types of impactful projects that seek solutions to 21st Century societal challenges.”
“Funding for this initiative was made possible through the University’s utility public-private partnership (P3),” said Marty Scholtz, vice president for research. “This program helps sustain growth in the research enterprise through strategic investments, while at the same time strengthening the University’s reputation as a destination for research and scholarship.”
The Interdisciplinary Scholars program is part of the OVPR’s Seeding Excellence Initiative (SEI), a two-year program that provides competitive pilot funding in four strategic areas: 1) community engaged research and scholarship, 2) diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), 3) early career scholars, and 4) interdisciplinary research.
Another call for proposals for the OVPR Interdisciplinary Scholars program will be announced no later than September 1, 2022. The request for proposals will also focus on the climate-environment-health nexus. The maximum award amount will be $100,000.
This article was written by Leslie Revaux and originally posted by the University of Iowa Office of the Vice President for Research
Dr. Brandi Janssen and Jackie Curnick have published a project report in the Science Education & Civic Engagement International Journal. The paper titled, “Evaluating Knowledge Transfer after a Science Cafe: A Qualitative Approach for Rural Settings,” was included in the Winter 2022 edition of the journal.
View the article pdf by clicking the image below
University of Iowa professor and EHSRC Member Michael J. Welsh, MD, has won the 2022 Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine together with Paul A. Negulescu, senior vice president and site head for San Diego research with Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.
The prize was awarded for landmark discoveries of the molecular, biochemical, and functional defects underlying cystic fibrosis and the identification and development of medicines that reverse those defects and can treat most people affected by this disorder.
The Shaw Prize is considered one of the most internationally prestigious awards in science and its application, and it carries a shared monetary award of $1.2 million. It honors individuals who have made “discoveries in the biomedical sciences and innovations in clinical medicine that have led to significant victories in our longstanding war against illness and suffering.” Welsh and Negulescu will receive the prize in fall 2022.
Welsh is a professor in the UI Department of Internal Medicine and its pulmonary, critical care, and occupational medicine division. He also is a professor in the neurosurgery, neurology, and molecular physiology and biophysics departments. Welsh also serves as director of the Pappajohn Biomedical Institute at Iowa. He has been leading groups of scientists studying lung biology and cystic fibrosis (CF) for 40 years.
Brooks Jackson, MD, vice president for medical affairs and the Tyrone D. Artz Dean of the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, says Welsh’s steadfast pursuit of answers to the fundamental questions underlying cystic fibrosis disease has never wavered in that time.
“As a physician-scientist, Dr. Welsh has remained focused on how his work in the lab would improve the medical care he and colleagues could offer their patients,” Jackson says. “His commitment to discovery and innovation has dramatically changed the lives of people with CF.”
Working with colleagues from the University of California, San Francisco, in the mid-1980s, Welsh first demonstrated that CF disrupts chloride ion movement across the sheet of cells that line the lung’s airways. Chloride, a component of salt, is present in secreted body fluids such as sweat, saliva and mucus, which are vital for the proper function of organs. In the lungs of people with CF, these secretions become thick and elastic and, rather than acting to clear inhaled matter from the lungs, they clog the passageways. Affecting more than 80,000 people worldwide, CF was long considered a lethal disease in childhood. Today, Welsh can point to young people with CF who compete in varsity-level athletics. Life expectancy and health have increased dramatically thanks in part to discoveries made by Welsh and Negulescu.
After the identification of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene in 1989, Welsh and his team made key discoveries toward understanding the role the product of this gene—the CFTR protein—plays in allowing chloride to move in and out of cells. They showed how mutations in the gene and the CFTR protein cause cells to malfunction and fuel disease development. Importantly, they showed that defects in the mutated CFTR can be repaired in cells. These insights provided a roadmap for the subsequent quest toward targeted therapies to repair the function of the CFTR protein.
Building on these key discoveries, a team of scientists at Vertex, led by Negulescu, initiated research in 1998 into compounds that modulate the function of the CFTR protein. The research led to the development in 2012 of the first compound that corrects the underlying protein defect responsible for disease symptoms. The drug restored cells’ ability to transport chloride and ushered in a new era of CF treatment, sparking the development of combination-drug therapies.
“The combined contributions of Welsh and Negulescu represent the complete biomedical arc from basic discovery to application to the saving of lives,” said the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine selection committee in announcing the shared award.
Welsh was quick to share the credit for this work.
“I am honored to receive this award, which would not have been possible without so many other people who contributed: terrific mentors, talented and creative students and trainees, my tireless and innovative assistants, my cherished colleagues,” he says. “The support and environment of the University of Iowa made this possible. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Carver Trust, and Pappajohn Biomedical Institute provided crucial support along the way. I am deeply grateful.”
The Shaw Prize consists of three annual awards: the Prize in Astronomy, the Prize in Life Science and Medicine, and the Prize in Mathematical Sciences. The award is managed and administered by The Shaw Prize Foundation, based in Hong Kong.
This article was first published by the University of Iowa College of Medicine