The U.S National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $7,722,583 to the new NEXUS: Network for Exposomics in the US Coordinating Center housed at Columbia University. The award is dedicated to organizing and stimulating research on the human exposome exploring the cumulative measure of environmental exposures and corresponding biological responses. The center is led by Gary Miller, PhD, vice dean for research strategy and innovation and professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health; Chirag Patel, PhD, associate professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School; and Rima Habre, ScD, associate professor of environmental health and spatial sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.
“NEXUS is a one-of-a-kind initiative and investment by NIH to propel the field of exposomics forward, which takes a precision approach to exposure science and recognizes the importance of environmental exposures on health and disease,” says Habre, an environmental health and geospatial science expert.
Together with Arcot Rajasekar, PhD, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Habre will also be leading the Geospatial Sciences Hub of NEXUS, which is pioneering new ways and training diverse scientists to study how place-based exposures in our surroundings impact health.
“We want to create the systems and build the transdisciplinary expertise and knowledge base needed to deepen our understanding of how environmental and social determinants work together to affect health, from the personal to population level, using geospatial methods and sensing technologies” says Habre.
Habre is partnering with fellow USC geospatial sciences and geoinformatics expert John P. Wilson, PhD, professor of spatial sciences and sociology and founding director of the Spatial Sciences Institute in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, to bring this transdisciplinary educational vision to life.
“Our educational mission and philosophy fuses domain knowledge and technical expertise as equal and essential partners,” says Wilson. “We aim to create a cadre of diverse scientists capable of bridging and translating across siloed disciplines, with a deep understanding of fundamentals in exposure science, health geography and geoinformatics along with key technical skills.”
NEXUS is a highly collaborative effort, featuring leading researchers from City University of New York, Delaware State University, Emory University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Morehouse College, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, University of California San Francisco, University of North Carolina, University of Southern California, and Yale University. This effort will extend beyond the United States to coordinate with the exposomics, health, and medicine community across the globe.
The Center is funded by five NIH Institutes including the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders, and the Office of Research on Women's Health.