Wadsworth Center's Children's Health Exposure Assessment Resource (WC-CHEAR)

Aldous, Kenneth; Kannan, Kurunthachalam; Parsons, Patrick

Abstract

The overall objective of the Wadsworth Center's Children's Health Exposure Analysis Resource (WC-CHEAR) is to establish a world-class laboratory facility that will serve the needs of NIH-funded investigators conducting research studies into the effects of environmental contaminants on children's health. The WC-CHEAR will bring together the tremendous resources, capabilities and expertise of the NY State Department of Health's public health laboratory and biomedical research facilities in Albany, NY with those of the NYU School of Medicine, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology. Together, this partnership between Wadsworth and NYU will provide researchers with access to state-of-the-art, specialized analytical facilities to support children's environmental health studies. The Wadsworth Center's is fully accredited under CLIA-88, and can support multiple NIH-funded studies, where children's urine and/or serum will be analyzed for organic chemical contaminants including, but not limited to, polychlorinated biphenyls, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, fluorinated compounds, brominated flame retardants, organophosphate insecticides, phenolic endocrine disrupting chemicals, and phthalates using techniques based on mass spectrometry. The laboratories are also able to analyze children's biospecimens for exposure to toxic heavy metals including, but not limited to, Pb, Cd, Hg, and As using the most sensitive methods available based on inorganic mass spectrometry. The laboratories are also able to analyze children's blood, serum/plasma, and urine for endogenous compounds including hormones, vitamins, protein markers, electrolytes and metabolite panels (including but not limited to estrogens, androgens, testosterone, thyroid panels, triglycerides, cholesterol, vitamin D and B12, folate, homocysteine and insulin) that may be affected by environmental exposures. Wadsworth provides extensive capabilities for analyzing non-traditional matrices such as placenta, cord blood, baby teeth, dried blood spots, hair, nails, and saliva for organic and inorganic contaminants to support novel approaches to measure children's exposure to toxic chemicals in their environment. Capability and expertise for investigating untargeted compounds will be shared between Wadsworth and NYU, where their extensive capabilities complement each other. The WC-CHEAR will benefit from the Wadsworth Center's international reputation and leadership in the field of clinical laboratory medicine, and as an organizer of proficiency testing (PT) programs in environmental laboratory medicine, clinical chemistry and toxicology. The experience and capability that Wadsworth brings in this regard will provide the NIEHS Children's Health Environmental Analytical Resource (CHEAR) network with a PT program customized to support biomonitoring studies and the needs of the network. The CHEAR PT program developed at Wadsworth will produce well-characterized, matrix-based reference materials containing exogenous and endogenous analytes of interest at critical concentration ranges relevant to biomonitoring that will be shared across the CHEAR lab network.

Public Health Relevance

The Wadsworth Center's Children's Health and Environmental Analytical Resource (WC CHEAR) will provide key leadership as a Network Hub, delivering the resources and expertise necessary to measure exposure and biological responses resulting from environmental stressors. The WC CHEAR will capitalize on the Wadsworth Center's strengths and extensive capabilities as a world class public health laboratory and research institute, coupled with a strategic partnership with New York University School of Medicine, to provide accurate and timely measurements for a broad range of targeted and untargeted analyses to support NIH-funded researchers studying children's environmental health issues.