# Supplement to Promote Diversity in the Research Workforce

> **NIH NIH UH3** · UTAH STATE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM--UNIVERSITY OF UTAH · 2020 · $61,209

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract (parent grant)
Early exposures in critical developmental windows around fertilization, implantation, and during pregnancy
can have long-term impact on health, development, and disease in children. A comprehensive assessment of
early exposures requires a multidimensional assessment of the exposome, including community-level
environmental factors (including air pollution), chemical exposures (including endocrine disruptors), the
microbiome (including commensals and infectious agents with associated immune responses), and the
genome and its responses to the environment (including the inherited epigenome, genomic expression, and
the proteome). We are currently re-enrolling a pediatric cohort from two birth cohorts enrolled peri-
conceptionally/prenatally, 1) the Utah participants in the National Children’s Study, and 2) participants in the
Home Observation of Peri-conceptional Exposures (HOPE) study, into the Early Life Exposures and Child
Trajectories (ELECT) cohort. We are also enrolling biological parents and up to one biological sibling child. In
the UG3 phase (the first two years), we focus on completing re-enrollment of the entire cohort, and also on
innovative methods for assessment of a spectrum of known and emerging exposures during the key early
windows of the peri-conceptional time and early pregnancy. Exposures we assess will include the microbiome,
medications, infections, pan-viral antibody assessment, air pollutants (especially particulate pollution (PM2.5),
also nitrogen oxides and ozone), endocrine disrupting chemicals (particularly bisphenol-A (BPA) and
phthalates), and hypomineralization of dental enamel as a marker for early endocrine disrupting exposure. We
will also conduct a preliminary assessment of some health impacts. In UH3 phase, we will focus on the
association of these exposures with subsequent outcomes in two focus areas: growth (including insulin
resistance and childhood obesity) and respiratory health (including respiratory infections and asthma). We will
work completely collaboratively with the ECHO national synthetic cohort to integrate UCP-ELECT into that
cohort. We will contribute to the design of the core measures for the synthetic ECHO cohort and implement
these within UCP-ELECT. Taken together, this proposal focuses throughout both UG3 and UH3 on novel
assessments for exposures that can be translated to other settings of the ECHO synthetic cohort in a feasible
and cost-effective manner. We are focused particularly on assessments that can be applied retrospectively in
other cohorts to assess very early exposures (peri-conception and early pregnancy). Thus, we will contribute
to the ECHO cohort 1) a population-based, pediatric cohort (950 children from 500 families) with extant and
new early biospecimens and assessments, and 2) scientific validation of critical multidimensional exposome
measurements from preconception through gestation and early childhood. These methods will then be
avail...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10177684
- **Project number:** 3UH3OD023249-05S1
- **Recipient organization:** UTAH STATE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM--UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
- **Principal Investigator:** Christina Porucznik
- **Activity code:** UH3 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $61,209
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2016-09-21 → 2021-08-18

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10177684

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10177684, Supplement to Promote Diversity in the Research Workforce (3UH3OD023249-05S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10177684. Licensed CC0.

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