A Note from the Director

It isn't often that in your second week on the job that opportunities exist for one to learn very quickly what success looks like in other P30 Centers. The EHSCC meeting in Houston really helped accelerate my understanding of many facets of the Director position, how cores operate elsewhere, and what community engagement looks like across the portfolio. I also got to know our CHHE attendees better, solidified our External Advisory Board membership (in person), and made sure that many of my long-time friends at other Centers know that we aim to continue to collaborate and build bridges. 

Additionally, in the NIEHS presentation and the Director's meeting, I learned a few things that I want you all to know:  

1. Our Center and its Research Interest Groups are well aligned with the future NIEHS Mission Statement (it has not been officially released yet)

2. There will nearly certainly be a decrease in external funding from NIEHS in the next year (possibly 2) due to disagreements on spending priorities in the White House, but the NIEHS intends to set aside about 1/3 of their budget for Early Stage Investigators, new investigators, and those "at risk".  

3. The ONES program has been eliminated and NIEHS intends to replace it in the future. They were not receiving enough stellar candidates to continue the program. Most applications were coming in as ESI R01s. 

4. There has been a strong uptick in the number of "EHS" grants funded by other NIH ICs - this is primarily due to Dr. Woychik making alliances with directors of other ICs. They have developed more of a cost-sharing or co-sponsorship of some grants. In fact, the next time you send a grant that has some EHS focus to another IC (because of pay lines, etc), please make sure to state in your cover letter that you would also like it evaluated by NIEHS. If you are on a funding bubble, this may increase your chance of co-IC sponsors and funding. On the other side of that, if you send to NIEHS and it may also be NICHD or NIDDK, etc, state that in the cover letter. 

I hope this is helpful to some... let me know if you have questions. 

Sue Fenton

sefenton@ncsu.edu 

Rm 1104E Toxicology Bldg.

Upcoming Events

Nov. 2: Dr. Allan Balmain, “Clonal Selection of Cancer Driver Mutations by Tumor Promoting Factors During Tumor Initiation and Progression” 1:00pm

Zoom webinar link: https://ncsu.zoom.us/j/93181284316

Nov 3: Behavior & Neuroscience RIG Monthly Meeting: Dr. Emilie Rissman, “Mouse Strain, Sex and Cocaine” 12:00pm DCL 139

News

Dr. Sue Fenton to Present in NASEM Workshop

To advance understanding and facilitate the recovery and wellbeing of those impacted, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will convene a two-day virtual public workshop entitled "Public Health Research and Surveillance Priorities from the East Palestine, Ohio Train Derailment" to explore potential health research and surveillance priorities arising from the derailment and material hazards spill that occurred in East Palestine, Ohio on February 3, 2023. The workshop will bring together participants and subject matter experts to discuss short and long-term human health impacts from the train derailment incident and similar incidents involving the transportation of hazardous materials. Sue will present a scoping report she developed and conducted with a team of NIEHS staff and contractors. For more information: https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/40970_11-2023_public-health-research-and-surveillance-priorities-from-the-east-palestine-ohio-train-derailment-a-workshop

NIEHS Recognizes New CHHE Director Newsletter

Dr. Carolyn Mattingly to Present in Human Health Exposure Analysis Resource (HHEAR) Webinar Series

The Human Health Exposure Analysis Resource (HHEAR) is hosting a series of webinars on several topics important to exposomics, a rapidly evolving approach in the contemporary biomedical sciences, which involves characterizing the totality of exposures and their effects on our health since conception.The twelfth webinar in this series will take place Thursday, November 9, at 3 p.m. ET. Carolyn Mattingly, PhD, of North Carolina State University and Antony Williams, PhD, of the Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure, United States Environmental Protection Agency, will discuss how biomedical knowledge bases can help us understand the link between environmental exposures and health. Register

Several CHHE Members Traveled to Houston for the 2023 NIEHS EHS Core Centers Annual Meeting

CHHE was well represented at the EHSCC Meeting! David Aylor, Sue Fenton, Nadine Kotlarz, Astrid Schnetzer, Katlyn May and Cathrine Hoyo attended. Cathrine and Nadine gave excellent talks. Astrid presented a poster and made some great connections. Katy facilitated the community engagement shark tank event. 

Dr. Nathan Crook Research Highlighted on WRAL



Dr. Crook is working on ways to remediate microplastics using genetically engineered microbes. Article

Dr. Scott Belcher Lab Publication Featured as NIEHS Extramural Paper of the Month

The paper titled, "Domestic Dogs and Horses as Sentinels of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance Exposure and Associated Health Biomarkers in Gray's Creek North Carolina" was led by postdoctoral fellow Kylie Rock. Paper

Lacey Brown Receives Pride of the WolfPack Award

Lacey is the CEC/Superfund Program Manager. The Pride of the WolfPack award recognizes staff who demonstrate university values and outstanding work.

Dr. Aaron Hipp and Colleagues Discover Relationship Between Greenspace and Human Health

The paper titled, “The Relationship Between Greenspace Exposure and Telomere Length in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey” was published in The Science of the Total Environment. Paper

Have you met Nathan Dunn, CHHE Data Analyst? 

Here are some ways that Nathan can help CHHE Members:

1. Do you need access to more free storage? 2-30 TB is available per faculty member or project (in RED) through Globus - Nathan can arrange for space to be assigned to you and can install it on your computer. 

2. Do you have papers that are out of compliance for open access? Nathan can assist you with publication submissions to NIHMS to make your work compliant with open access policies and can also help make those older papers that you said you would circle back to compliant. Please reach out to him directly for help.

3. Are you finishing a paper soon that needs data sets submitted to a repository? He can help. 

4. Do you need help with a data management plan for your grant? Please reach out to him. He can also help develop plans that are model specific that may meet the needs of several investigators and can build data repositories for multi-PI projects. 

5. Is your Google Drive a nightmare? Nathan can help with drive cleanup and data migration. 

Email Nathan at ncdunn@ncsu.edu