The Administrative core of the Mount Sinai P30 Core Center provides scientific direction, performs fiscal management, implements organizational initiatives and oversees career development. In the last 3 years, our Center has built a strong base of NIEHS funding including a CHEAR lab hub, the CHEAR Data Center, 5 new R01s, as well as 9 K awards themed on environmental health. Our Center's first Center Scientist was also remarkably successful, Dr Manish Arora was awarded both an DP2 (new innovator) grant and his first R01, and played a key role in the 2 Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) grants awarded to Mount Sinai. Our Pilot Projects Program has fueled a large number of new NIEHS grant applications, increased facility core usage and has been a strong vehicle for career development. The Administrative core supports 3 Research groups (1. multiple exposures/mixtures, 2. social environment-chemical interactions and 3. sex specific effects) that are designed to be problem oriented so that we can tackle the complex issues embedded in the NIEHS strategic plan (i.e. the study of multiple exposures, multiple mechanisms, and exposomics). These Research Groups organize seminars, workshops and journal clubs that bring together Center members from multiple disciplines to discuss issues relevant to the group's themes. The Administrative Core oversees three Facility Cores: an Integrated Health Sciences Facility Core that supports biomarker and exposure research, a Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Facility Core that supports analysis of environmental health/toxicology data and creates new data analytic methods for complex exposomic data; and a clinically- oriented Phenotyping and Environmental Modifier Facility Core that supports state of the art health measures as well as measures of the social/nutritional environment. Our Career Development program is now embedded in this core, and supports a Center Scientist, providing him/her with funding and access to a number of career enhancement programs throughout Mount Sinai. Our program to support junior investigators applying for P30 pilot grants has also been remarkably successful with 14 of 19 funded pilot grants going to Assistant Professors. Our Community Engagement Core implements bidirectional communication and partnership locally, and its Stakeholder Advisory Board in turn supports the Administrative core, providing counsel on policy and environmental issues of local importance. Our External Advisory Board provides scientific council. Our P30 Center will soon expand, given our new Institute for Exposomic Research (see Dean's letter) and we anticipate the need for additional infrastructure, new core services and additional staffing to give Center members access to the many scientific breakthroughs that will occur in Environmental Health in the coming years. This P30 Center is critical to our expansion, as it created and supports the infrastructure that catalyzed all this growth. In summary, our P30 Center has been highly successful, is about to grow even further, and in this renewal will continue to meet the changing infrastructure needs of our environmental research community.
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