Penn’s CEET receives $8 million grant for environmental health research

The Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology (CEET) at the University of Pennsylvania received an $8 million grant, to be distributed over the next five years, from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a renewal of its P30 Environmental Health Sciences Core Center (EHSCC) grant.

The Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology combines rigorous scientific and medical research with direct community engagement and policy-making to effect positive outcomes for the health of our environment and our communities. One cannot conduct meaningful environmental health research without engaging the communities affected. Center researchers come from 16 departments in four schools across Penn and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and collaborate across fields of study and expertise to solve environmental health challenges in our region, work for environmental and social justice, and empower communities to effect change."

Trevor Penning, PhD, a professor of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics and founding director of CEET

The mission of CEET is to elucidate the mechanistic links between environmental exposures and human disease, and translate its findings into action to improve the health of vulnerable individuals, and local, national and global communities. CEET is the only EHSCC in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region III (PA, DE, MD, VA, WV and Washington, D.C).

The grant will allow CEET members to conduct cutting edge environmental health research with a focus on exposures that affect Southeastern Pennsylvania and its communities. The Center's thematic areas in air pollution and lung health, environmental exposures and cancer, windows of susceptibility and environmental neuroscience enable its members to conduct meaningful research on these exposures. The vibrant Community Engagement Core (CEC) will continue to disseminate research findings, address issues of environmental justice (EJ) and influence public policy.

The environmental injustice that exists is reflected in the COVID-19 pandemic and influenced by the social determinants of health. In this regard, the CEET has already issued a statement of solidarity in support of our communities of color.

CEET members' research is supported by state-of-the art facility cores: Translational Biomarker Core (uses sophisticated analytical methods to detect biomarkers of exposure and effect in biospecimens), Integrative Health Sciences facility Core (human subject study design, exposure biology laboratories, and population sciences with an emphasis on environmental epidemiology and geospatial modeling), and Exposure Biology Informatics (with a focus on computational toxicology, artificial intelligence to identify patterns of toxic response and exposomics). The CEET looks forward to improving environmental health in our region with the hope that lessons learned will be translatable elsewhere.