In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that environmental factors contribute significantly to risk, incidence, and severity of cardiovascular disease and cancer. The Environmental Toxicology (ET) Core facility proposes to provide the capacity to investigate the disproportionate level in which these environmental factors affect minority populations and lead to burdensome morbidity and mortality among this community. This capacity will be utilized in performing an integrated-environmental health analysis to: 1) monitor and assess environmental hazards and risk levels associated with cardiovascular disease and cancer; 2) investigate impact, molecular pathways and mechanisms of toxicity to the exposure of such environmental factors; and 3) develop strategies to mitigate the exposure risk that result in disease disparity, pathogenesis and disease progression in minority populations. Primary to the ET Core's capacity is: 1) providing a framework of core lab services and advanced instrumentation in the following areas?molecular analysis, high-resolution imaging, environmental monitoring and assessment, integrated environmental-health analysis and geographic information systems (GIS); 2) supporting the maintenance and operation of advanced instrumentation and research infrastructure; and 3; developing a platform of critical research expertise and services on which a higher research productivity can be achieved. The ET Core function of research services and infrastructure is an important enabler to the university's emerging research enterprise and critical to the long-term success of the TSU's research programs in areas of biomedical/biomolecular, pharmaceutical, environmental health and toxicology.
The broader impact of these ET Core activities is the enabling of a sustainable foundation? infrastructure, training, collaborations, management, policies and practices? for biomedical and environmental health research capacity that will enable the transformation of TSU's emerging research culture from an independent collection of investigators to a more efficient collaborative community of researchers utilizing a common platform of services and infrastructure to investigate the causes and cures of cancer and cardiovascular disease, two diseases that are leading causes of death in Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.
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