Description
The overall goal of this facility core is to develop an infrastructure and an interactive environment to promote and facilitate productive collaborations among environmental health, population, basic, and clinical scientists, to test cutting edge hypotheses in integrative translational research on environmental disorders. This core will enhance access of all center members to populations, biospecimen repositories, services and data banks from population-based and clinical studies, thereby fostering these collaborations among scientists.
The specific aims of Facility Core 5 are:
- To offer specialized services for translational studies, including protocol development, specimen archiving, questionnaire design, data collection and analysis, and exposure assessment.
- To provide an inventory of well characterized data and biospecimen repositories from ongoing, funded population science studies to facilitate integrative environmental clinical and public health research.
- To support the development of new methodologies to assess specific environmental exposures implicated in human disease.
- To train the next generation of environmental health scientists and clinicians in the paradigm of integrative health research by providing a training platform that integrates the functions of clinical and public health practice with integrative research.
Significance
Translation of basic research findings to clinical or public health applications is an extremely important focus of environmental health sciences today. A major goal of the CRED for the next funding period is to stimulate interactions between Center Members involved in basic studies of environmental exposures and mechanisms of environmental disease and Center Members involved in clinical and population-based environmental health research. This will have the effect of increasing the Center's significance in areas directly relevant to public health and environmental medicine. Please visit the CRED Pilot Projects web page for information on special funding for Pilot Projects that utillize the Integrative Health Sciences Facility Core.
The Integrative Health Sciences Facility Core is the keystone of this effort. This Core will facilitate integrative environmental health research by providing expanded access for CRED members to well-defined study populations, a variety of existing resources, and by providing new methodologies and assays that can be applied to samples derived from these populations. The new collaborations that result will provide an environment for cross-fertilization of ideas between disciplines. In this way, important basic research advances can be readily translated to real-world problems in environmental health. Study populations available within the Center will allow Center investigators to conduct cutting-edge research on environmental diseases such as cancer, asthma, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. Examples of ongoing studies that may provide opportunites for new collaborations are summarized in the following table.
Examples of ongoing population-based studies with data and/or specimens
| STUDY | DESIGN | POPULATION | # PARTICIPANTS | DATA TYPE/SOURCE | SPECIMENS TYPE | END POINTS | FOLLOW UP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TexGen Consortium | longitudinal study | Cardiovascular & cancer patients, Houston | 13,000 (cancer, stroke, heart disease patients) | demographic, clinical, treatment CHARTS | Blood | Survival, response to therapy | Yes |
| Mano a mano | cohort | Mexican Americans Houston residents | 10,485 | Demographic, medical history, acculturation, occupational, residential history QUESTIONNAIRE | Blood, urine, buccal | Health conditions | Yes |
| Genetic susceptibility in migrant farmworker (MSF) children | cross-sectional study | Mother and child of mexican origin | 200 MSF mother-child pairs, 200 non-MSF mother-child pairs | chemical exposure, pesticide use, reproductive history, medical history, alcohol and tobacco use QUESTIONNAIRE | Blood, urine | pesticides mutagenic activity levels, genotyping, cytogenetics | Possible |
| Stavanger pre-eclampsia birth study | nested cohort study | All women w/ preeclampsia and newborn child and 2 controls with normal pregnancies | 1200 parent-child dyads | Birth and hospital registry data, well child clinic data QUESTIONNAIRE CHART | Cord blood; blood and urine for mother and child at 2 ages | Growth and hormonal concentrations; polymorphisms in CPY 450 | Yes |
| Urban air toxics & asthma variability in children | prospective pilot | Asthmatic middle school children in Houston | 30 children | ozone and particulate matter concentrations, respiratory function measurements QUESTIONNAIRE | No specimens | Correlation between air quality and asthma variability | No |
| Indoor, Outdoor and personal air study | cross-sectional study | Homes and adults in Los Angeles, Houston and Elizabeth, NJ | 300 homes, 300 adults | particulate matter, 18 VOC & 17 carbonyl compounds, 31 PAHs, organic carbon and elemental carbon QUESTIONNAIRE | No specimens | Quantification of outdoor air to indoor and personal air concentrations | No |
| Molecular epidemiology of myeloid leukemias | case control and follow up | Patients from Texas diagnosed at UTMDACC | 1,307 | Demographic, clinical, epidemiological, diet QUESTIONNAIRE CHART | Blood | Environmental risk factors and genetic susceptibility in risk/ survival | Yes |
| Multiethnic Control Group | case control | Texas non-cancer controls | 2,100 | Demographic, clinical, epidemiological, diet QUESTIONNAIRE | Blood | Markers of cancer risks | Possible |
For more detailed information, please contact the core Director,
Dr. Sara Strom
email: sstrom@mdanderson.org
phone: 713-792-8274
Services/Infrastructure
The Integrative Health Sciences Facility Core (FC5) will provide services supporting translational environmental research. The major services envisioned are described below; other services may be added as additional needs are identified.
1. Protocol development and administration
The Core can assist Center members by offering the following protocol and IRB-related services: 1) training on protocol submission, handling correspondence for IRB-related matters, completing required IRB forms, and delivering necessary documents to the IRB; 2) ensuring protocols include all required elements; 3) revising IRB protocols and providing supplemental documentation; 4) completing annual IRB renewals; and 5) writing informed consent documents or obtaining waivers of informed consent.
2. Access to existing populations
This Core will facilitate integrative environmental health sciences research by providing expanded access for CRED members to well-defined study populations (partial list available on CRED website under FC5, http://cred.mdanderson.org/fc/fc5.htm), a variety of existing resources, and by providing new methodologies and assays that can be applied to samples derived from these populations. The goal is to establish collaborations that will result in cross-fertilization of ideas between disciplines.
3. Questionnaire development
The Core will offer consultation services as well as questionnaire design, development and validation. Questionnaires can be developed using either hard-copy format or scannable format. For the scannable questionnaires, we use TeleForm, a state of the art form-development and document-processing software, that scans handprint, machine print, checked-boxes, and barcodes.
4. Database development and support
The Core also provides database and IT support for CRED members. The following tasks may be supported: 1) design, develop and deploy computerized databases; 2) develop and maintain systems for data entry; 3) provide ad hoc queries and reports; 4) perform and assist in data entry; 5) adapt, implement, and maintain software to meet various studies' needs; 6) combine and utilize experience in designing, coding and implementing various applications and operating systems; and 7) develop edit check programs and protocols.
5. Exposure Assessment of home and residential environments
We also offer methods to evaluate participant home and neighborhood environments using standardized questionnaires, measuring of airborne contaminants, determining ventilation effectiveness and air exchange rates, and analyzing bulk dust samples. The Core can: 1) develop sampling strategies for exposure measurements; 2) provide the necessary equipment to measure contaminants; 3) provide training, personnel and expert faculty oversight for sample collection; 4) store, extract and analyze samples; 5) interpret and validate the results; 6) develop models of exposure to incorporate in statistical analyses; and 7) provide QA/QC protocols and oversight for measurements and analyses. We have the capability to measure/characterize particulate matter, ozone, multiple volatile organic compounds, trace metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, non-volatile unstable compounds requiring derivatization, some pesticides or pesticide derivatives, airborne and waterborne aldehydes, and certain biomarkers.
6. Nutritional Assessment
The Core offers dietary, anthropometric and biochemical markers of nutritional status through nutrient and food analysis of dietary data collected in human research. The dietary tools include food frequency questionnaires and food records. Instruction in dietary methodology is available to both investigators and participants. Dietary intake of macro-nutrients (e.g. fat, fiber, calories) and micro-nutrients (e g. alpha-tocopherol, carotenoids) are estimated from the dietary tools.
7. Analytical Support
The Core statistical analysts can provide statistical consultation for all aspects of the projects, including study design, sample size determination, statistical analysis and reports using standard analytical approaches. Software applications that are used include SAS, S+ and R, Stata, and SPSS. In addition, the statistical analytical group writes original code in high level programming languages such as C++.
8. Archiving Laboratory Core
The Population Studies Laboratory (PSL) Core can provide specimen processing and banking services/facilities, as well as RNA and DNA extraction, DNA amplification, and protein extraction. Additional services include specimen retrieval and archiving. The PSL offers long-term storage of whole blood, fractionated blood, DNA, RNA, urine, tissue, and other biologic samples. A customized database has been developed and is being used to manage samples, freezer space, usage tracking, and results.
For more detailed information, please contact the Core Director or one of the Program Coordinators:
Dr. Sara Strom, Ph.D.
Core Director
Email: sstrom@mdanderson.org
Phone: 713-794-8274
Yuko Yamamura
Program Coordinator, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center
Email: yyamamur@mdanderson.org
Phone: 713-745-2975
Michelle Payton, M.S.
Program Coordinator, UT Houston School of Public Health
Email: Michelle.A.Payton@uth.tmc.edu
Phone: 713-500-9475
Staff
Sara Strom, PhD, Core Director
George Delclos, MD, MPH, PhD, Co-Director
Michele Forman, PhD, Associate Director
Christopher Amos, PhD, Associate Director
Maria Morandi, PhD, Associate Director
Elaine Symanski, PhD, Associate Director
Yuko Yamamura, Program Coordinator
Michelle Payton, M.S., Program Coordinator
