# Pacific Northwest Center for Translational Environmental Health Research

> **NIH NIH P30** · OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $1,121,000

## Abstract

OVERALL SUMMARY
A dominant paradigm of environmental health science is the adverse outcome pathway. The adverse outcome
pathway contains an external segment and an internal segment. The external segment is a toxic chemical that
comes into contact with a person. That chemical may come from air, water, soil, or diet. The internal segment
of the outcome pathway consists of a chain of events: the chemical interacts with a biological target, which
triggers events that in turn lead to organ responses, organism responses, and population responses. This
framework supports the most important environmental health science questions of our era: What chemical
exposures cause disease? How do they cause disease? Why are some people more susceptible than others? How
can we predict toxicity? How can we mitigate the impacts of hazardous chemicals? How can we reduce the use
of toxic chemicals in commerce? To answer these questions, the OSU EHS CC has an established world-leading
position in two of the world's most powerful technologies for investigating the adverse outcome pathway. To
study the external segment, the Chemical Exposure (CXC) Facility Core has developed passive sampling
wristbands that capture volatile and semi-volatile organic chemicals, as well as analytical techniques that can
detect and quantify 1,500 compounds in a single run at low cost. To study the internal segment, the Zebrafish
Biomedical Research (ZBR) Facility Core has built the world's largest specific-pathogen-free (i.e., low-
experimental-noise) zebrafish environmental health sciences facility. Robots evaluate locomotor activity and
look for physical and behavioral endpoints. Full-genome transcriptomics analyses reveal which gene
expressions change before the phenotype changes. Together, the CXC and the ZBR give our investigators
uniquely powerful experimental capabilities in EHS. Furthermore, these technologies are more than
complementary; they are synergistic. We have applied wristband extracts as direct input to the zebrafish
bioassay and identified the most toxic compounds in chemical mixtures via effects-directed analysis. Our
Integrated Health Sciences Facilities and Community Engagement Cores will make these capabilities available
to the extended EHS community via a new translational research model. We plan to co-produce knowledge
with stakeholders in seven categories (residential communities, legislators, regulators, manufacturers, health
care providers, pharmaceutical firms, and non-profit organizations). EHS CC members will conduct cross-
sectoral multidisciplinary research with these stakeholders in order to generate actionable scientific evidence to
guide stakeholder decisions that will improve environmental public health.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9918014
- **Project number:** 1P30ES030287-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Robyn L Tanguay
- **Activity code:** P30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $1,121,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-07-01 → 2025-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9918014

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9918014, Pacific Northwest Center for Translational Environmental Health Research (1P30ES030287-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9918014. Licensed CC0.

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