National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) was founded in 1969. Its mission is to reduce the burden of disease caused by environmental factors through defining how environmental exposures affect human health and how individuals differ in their susceptibility to exposures. The focus of NIEHS is on disease prevention rather than on treatment, which tends to characterize the mission of the other Institutes within the National Institutes of Health.

NIEHS has its headquarters and intramural laboratories in North Carolina, in close proximity to research laboratories of the Environmental Protection Agency. The NIEHS extramural program funds individual competitive research grants and a variety of research centers throughout the United States. These include generalized Centers of Excellence as well as research centers focused on hazardous waste and on children's health and the environment. In recent years the NIEHS has extended its grants and centers program beyond basic laboratory science to a broader range of public health disciplines and activities, including K–12 programs, community outreach activities, and international environmental health. NIEHS also administers the National Toxicology Program (NTP) which, in concert with other federal agencies, evaluates the hazards of chemicals.

(SEE ALSO: Environmental Determinants of Health; Environmental Impact Statement; Environmental Protection Agency; Exposure Assessment; National Institutes of Health; Toxic Substances Control Act; Toxicology)

— BERNARD D. GOLDSTEIN

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) is one of 27 Institutes and Centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH),which is a component of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). NIEHS is located on 375 acres (1.52 km²) in Research Triangle Park (RTP).

The mission of the NIEHS is to reduce the burden of human illness and disability by understanding how the environment influences the development and progression of human disease. NIEHS focuses on basic science, disease-oriented research, global environmental health, and multidisciplinary training for researchers.

NIEHS researchers and grantees have shown the deadly effects of asbestos exposure, the developmental impairment of children exposed to lead and the health effects of urban pollution. This is the laboratory of the 1994 co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in medicine, Dr. Martin Rodbell. Here scientists that same year had a key role in identifying the first breast cancer gene, BRCA1, and, in 1995, identified a gene that suppresses prostate cancer. Here is where genetically altered mice have been developed -- to improve and shorten the screening of potential toxins and to help develop aspirin-like anti-inflammatory drugs with fewer side effects.

The Institute funds centers for environmental health studies at universities across the United States, including Harvard University, Oregon State University, Vanderbilt University, the University of California at Berkeley, and MIT.

See also

• Environmental Health Perspectives

External links

• National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences home page

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