# Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors (CURES)

> **NIH NIH P30** · WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $1,475,954

## Abstract

Situated in the heart of Detroit, the environmental health sciences “identity” of the Center for Urban Responses
to Environmental Stressors (CURES) is to understand the health impacts of environmental exposures to
complex chemical and non-chemical contaminants in Detroit's urban landscape. Our strategic vision is to
provide leadership to identify, evaluate, and mitigate environmental health concerns in close collaboration with
the community and environmental policy makers. CURES has assembled a unique interdisciplinary team of
established and new environmental health scientists and community partners to address major environmental
health challenges facing Detroit's racially and ethnically diverse population. We hypothesize that “modern-era”
diseases (e.g., cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes) that compromise the quality of life of residents living
in an industrialized urban environment, such as Detroit, occur as a consequence of dynamic interactions
among an individual's genetic and epigenetic make-up, nutritional status, and environmental stressors, which
re-program key cellular networks to favor pathogenesis. CURES advances the NIEHS 2012-2017 Strategic
Plan by nurturing strong bonds with Detroit's urban community, applying translational and interdisciplinary
team-research approaches to solve complex environmental health problems, and by seeking the sources of
environmental health disparities. CURES is making an impact in our region. Our researchers and community
partners responded rapidly and coordinately to a serious emerging health crisis in our immediate vicinity; the
2015-2016 lead watershed contamination disaster in Flint, Michigan. To create a gateway to a healthy Detroit,
CURES' short-term goals are to: 1) strengthen existing partnerships and continue to develop new ones
between CURES and the Detroit community; 2) in collaboration with them, identify the chief environmental
health threats to Detroit's vulnerable populations; 3) conduct highly integrated mechanistic, epidemiological,
and community-engaged research that addresses the impact of urban environmental exposures on human
health; 4) build the capacity of CURES to accomplish its research goals by providing facility cores that are
optimized to meet the needs of its members and seed funds to support pilot projects to explore the feasibility of
new areas of study; and 5) enhance the impact of CURES on the field of environmental health science by
providing mentoring to new and established investigators that supports their professional goals and prepares
them for leadership roles in environmental health research. Our long-term goals are to 1) enhance our
community partners' efforts to increase community awareness and facilitate programs for a healthier
community and 2) develop appropriate strategies, based on CURES research, to inform policy so as to
mitigate the risks associated with urban environmental exposures. We believe that CURES is optimally
positioned on "the ground floo...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10134338
- **Project number:** 5P30ES020957-08
- **Recipient organization:** WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Melissa A Runge-Morris
- **Activity code:** P30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $1,475,954
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2014-06-05 → 2024-06-19

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10134338

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10134338, Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors (CURES) (5P30ES020957-08). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10134338. Licensed CC0.

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