Overview
Understanding exposures to environmental and occupational airborne particles, their health effects, the mechanisms of these effects, and public health implications of these exposures requires a multidisciplinary approach. This problem needs the expertise of atmospheric chemists, engineers, aerosol scientists, toxicologists, physiologists, pulmonologists, cardiologists, immunologists, molecular biologists, epidemiologists, statisticians, and experts in risk assessment. The Harvard-NIEHS Center brings together proven expertise in these disciplines to address this issue. The Particles Core builds upon on an extensive portfolio of active research at the Harvard School of Public Health and allied institutions. The productivity and leadership of the Harvard-NIEHS Center in assessing the exposures, the health effects, and the policy implications of airborne particles highlights the importance of the multidisciplinary approach made possible by the Center.
Core Director and Members
Director: John Godleski, Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Health (HSPH); Associate Professor of Pathology (HMS). He is also the director of the Electron Microscopy Facility.
Highlights
Under the leadership of Dr. John Godleski MD, the Particles Core brings together basic, clinical, and public health scientist to work in concert to make substantial progress in our understanding of human health effects that result from ambient particle exposure and the biological mechanisms responsible for these effects. For example, investigators of this core were among the first to epidemiologically define cardiovascular deaths as very important outcomes related to increases in ambient air pollution (Dockery, Pope et al. 1993; Schwartz 1999). In population studies, Center investigators and others identified short term outcomes, such as heart rate variability and arrhythmias that served as potential markers that could lead to cardiovascular deaths and were associated with exposure to increases in ambient particles (Pope, Verrier et al. 1999; Gold, Litonjua et al. 2000). These findings were defined in human populations, technologies were developed to use real particulate ambient air pollution in laboratory settings to study toxicological mechanisms (Sioutas, Koutrakis et al. 1995; Godleski, Verrier et al. 2000), and laboratory models with both large and small animals were developed for mechanistic studies (Clarke, Catalano et al. 1999; Godleski, Verrier et al. 2000; Gurgueira, Lawrence et al. 2002; Wellenius, Saldiva et al. 2002; Wellenius, Coull et al. 2003). In the past three years, interactions between basic scientist and epidemiological investigators fostered by this NIEHS center have substantially accelerated this area of research. The iterative process has resulted in a clearer understanding of who is susceptible, and by what mechanisms do the responses result in adverse health outcomes. Most importantly, we have begun to reach a level of understanding in which multiple diverse outcomes are mechanistically linked.
Basic Science
Clinical Science
Public Policy
Announcements & Events
Please check out the events at the Department of Environmental Health website.