About the GC-CPEH
The GC-CPEH, funded by the NIEHS as a P30 Environmental Health Sciences Core Center (P30ES030285), is a partnership between Baylor College of Medicine, UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, and the University of Texas Medical Branch. Based in the Texas Medical Center, the Center serves as a hub for environmental health research – advancing science, fostering career development, promoting community engagement, and guiding public health practice across the Gulf Coast region.
Our Vision- Advancing Environmental Health Through Research, Community, and Careers
The GC-CPEH drives impactful environmental health research by providing access to shared resources and advanced technologies, fostering career development and community engagement, and enabling rapid research coordination and response before, during, and after environmental disasters.
Thematic Focus Areas
Facilitating cross-disciplinary interactions to improve human environmental health in three Thematic Focus Areas.
Genome and Epigenome: Environment Interactions (GE2) led by Dr. Cheryl Walker, BCM and Dr. Zheng Sun, BCM.
GE2 advances discovery through innovative mechanistic and omics-based studies.
Research within the GE2 Interactions Theme seeks to understand the impact of our early life environment on health and susceptibility to disease across the life course. What are the mechanisms that drive the health impacts of genome and epigenome environment interactions? How does our early life environment influence health and disease susceptibility across the life course? Who is most at risk for the adverse health effects of environmental exposures? How do microbiome-derived metabolites influence epigenomic programming to drive disease? These are some of the key questions addressed by GE2 members.
Mechanisms and Interventions in Human Environmental Disease (MIHED) led by Dr. Elaine Symanski, BCM, and Dr. Daniel Gorelick, BCM.
MIHED builds on findings to identify interventions and improve health outcomes.
Research within the GE2 Interactions Theme seeks to understand the impact of our early life environment on health and susceptibility to disease across the life course. What are the mechanisms that drive the health impacts of genome and epigenome environment interactions? How does our early life environment influence health and disease susceptibility across the life course? Who is most at risk for the adverse health effects of environmental exposures? How do microbiome-derived metabolites influence epigenomic programming to drive disease? These are some of the key questions addressed by GE2 members.
Current and Emergent Environmental Threats (CEET) led by Dr. Stephen Linder, UTHealth, and Drs. Abi Oluyomi and Drew Helmer, BCM.
CEET bridges science and real-world challenges, addressing disasters, extreme weather, and other emerging threats.
Which agents in our immediate environment pose the greatest threats to human health? How do disasters from natural and human-made hazards impact our exposures, and who is at greatest risk for the resulting adverse health consequences? How is the health of our veterans affected by environmental exposures encountered during their deployment? How can we best inform EHS policies? These are some of the key questions being addressed by CEET members.
Our Institutions
Advancing environmental health through research and collaboration
Baylor College of Medicine
Center for Precision Environmental Health. Working at the intersection of genetics, environmental health, and data science, researchers in Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Precision Environmental Health, seek to understand these differing effects, evaluating gene-environment interactions. Under the direction of Dr. Cheryl Walker, the CPEH builds on its affiliation with other Baylor College of Medicine departments, as well as state and national centers. Center researchers will be working collaboratively at the intersection of genetics/epigenetics, environmental health, and data science to understand how the environment influences health and disease and uncover new disease control strategies and interventions.
Advanced Technology Cores. The Advanced Technology Cores at Baylor provide state-of-the-art instrumentation and technologies to support research of all faculty on a fee-for-service basis. Many of these Cores provide infrastructure and expertise for GC-CPEH Facility Cores.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health. The Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (SWCOEH) is a NIOSH Education and Research Center (ERC) at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The mission of the SWCOEH is to promote and improve health, safety, and well-being in the workplace and the community by supporting research, education and outreach in occupational and environmental health.
The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
Sealy Center for Environmental Health Medicine. The mission of the Sealy Center for Environmental Health Medicine is to explore the environmental basis of human diseases by fostering collaborative interactions amongst multidisciplinary basic and clinical investigators pursuing both fundamental and translational research pertaining to the effects of environmental factors on human health. The Sealy Center is housed at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, located in a large metropolitan area on the Gulf of Mexico coast, surrounding the nation’s busiest shipping port (Port of Houston) and an expansive petrochemical refining and manufacturing infrastructure. Our proximity to sources of significant environmental stressors makes UTMB at Galveston a compelling site for an environmental health sciences center. The underlying causes of these stressors include the changing natural environment, including acute and long-term meteorological conditions, population density, personal and commercial transportation patterns, and the endemic petrochemical industry. Some of the most serious environmental issues are ozone pollution, emissions of fine particulates, hazardous chemical releases, hazardous waste sites, and legacy contamination of the human ecosystem. Sealy Center investigators work with community stakeholders to frame the critical research issues and inform evidence-based solutions to environmental health concerns.
The Institute for Translational Sciences The Institute for Translational Sciences (ITS) aims to train a new generation of clinical and translational researchers, engage stakeholders and communities in research, address barriers to clinical and translational research, and advance translational research through team-based approaches. The ITS houses UTMB at Galveston’s Clinical Translational Sciences Award (CTSA), funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). The CTSA supports the health goals of the nation by generating, testing and disseminating integrative team science, education and best practices through stakeholder involvement at all stages.
OUR INSTITUTIONS
One Baylor Plaza, MS 229, Houston, TX 77030
Email: gc-cpeh@bcm.edu
Citation for Center Support
“Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences under Award Number P30ES030285. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.”
