The fetal, neonatal, and infant developmental periods represent times in which a daunting array of environmental challenges may compromise present and long-term health. The Children's Environmental Health Sciences Core Center addresses adverse health determinants in these early stages of life. The Center proposal is founded on the partnership between investigators formerly in the Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Sciences (MFBS) Center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Children's Research Institute (CRI) of Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. Former MFBS Center scientists focus on environmental determinants of reproductive and developmental diseases and disorders in aquatic models, principally the zebrafish, as well as mammalian systems. The CRI contributes clinical, translational and community health investigators who are highly knowledgeable about childhood diseases and focus on this patient population in both their research and practice. The primary objective or this proposal will be to attract and strongly support numerous teams of scientists positioned along the basic, translational, and clinical/public heath sciences continuum. Their work will move the Center to national prominence in research on childhood disease and its environmental contributors. The complementary objective will be to achieve leadership in the conversion of scientific understanding into effective community education aimed at preventing environmentally influenced childhood disease. The Center will support research on the environmental roots of neurobehavioral diseases, cardiovascular birth defects and reproductive dysfunctions in relation to signal transduction/endocrine disruption, oxidative stress, and genomic variability. Research and outreach linked to the National Children's Study Vanguard Program in Waukesha, WI and freshwater/Great Lakes and children's health serve as additional integrative foci for Center activities. Center resources for clinical and community research are gathered in the Integrative Health Sciences Facility Core with its concentrated assets for patient-based studies, deep support for community studies with critical links to the Community Outreach and Educational Core (COEC), and a wealth of biostatistics infrastructure support. A companion initiative in physician-scientist career development concentrates on a research-intensive pediatric environmental health fellowship program. The Aquatic Animal Models Facility Core supports a comprehensive zebrafish husbandry and experimentation facility, a unique neurobehavioral laboratory, and specialized molecular biology and genomics infrastructure. The Imaging and Histology Facility Core affords researchers using zebrafish and mammalian models, as well as clinical researchers, state-of-the art support for microscopic analysis, histological services, and storage of biological samples. The COEC will provide national leadership in rigorous outreach and education to teachers, nurses, and socioeconomically disadvantages communities. BACKGROUND The proposed Center would be formed by strengthening the existing partnership between the well-established Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Sciences Center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with the Pediatrics Department at the Medical College of Wisconsin. The partnership currently exists as the Children's Environmental Health Institute, which has been in place since 2006. This Institute has already attracted a number of basic scientists and clinician scientists through a shared interest in environmental health and the opportunity to conduct pilot projects. Based on the application, the University also has a newly formed College of Public Health. It is possible that resources offered to this College will indirectly strengthen the proposed Center. ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS Strategic Vision and Impact on Environmental Health
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