Join the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health for a webinar addressing the “L.A. Fires & Public Health: Where We Go From Here” on Tuesday, January 28, from 12:00pm – 1:15pm PT, via Zoom.

REGISTER NOW

HOST

Dr. Ron Brookmeyer, dean and distinguished professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

PARTICIPANTS

Dr. David Eisenman, professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences and director of the Center for Public Health and Disasters at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Dr. Dana Rose Garfin, associate professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Dr. Michael Jerrett, professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, the Jonathan Fielding Chair in Climate Change and Public Health, and co-director of the Center for Climate Change and Health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Dr. Rachael Jones, professor and chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Dr. Miriam Marlier, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Dr. Yifang Zhu, professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Preventing Silicosis

An ancient disease in modern times: Silicosis caused by artificial stone in the United States 

May 16, 2024

UCLA – All Day – Registration opens 7:30am

The purpose of this conference is to bring together affected workers, employers and manufacturers with researchers, unions, community-based organizations and other stakeholders to develop practical and feasible solutions to prevent silicosis caused by artificial stone. 

Free RSVP 

Visit the event page for more details.

RSVP NOW!

EHS & The Molecular Toxicology IDP Present: The Role of Toxicology in FDA-Approved Therapeutics

 Julie Castañeda, PhD, Division of Pharmacology/Toxicology for Immunology and Inflammation, U.S. FDA

From early discovery research to the release of a new drug onto the market, toxicology plays a pivotal role in the drug development process. Toxicology is involved in the milestone of each major step as a drug attempts to gain FDA-approval. Assessing the safety profile of a pharmaceutical product by extrapolating animal data to humans is the primary goal of toxicology review work performed by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA). This presentation will delve into the drug development process and highlight the role of toxicology in FDA-approved therapeutics. Case studies will be presented that explain how animal data aids in the prediction of safety and efficacy in humans.

Julie Castañeda obtained her PhD in Molecular Toxicology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2016, where she published various papers on the toxicological effects of marijuana on the human immune system. She later went on to work in the Early Discovery phase of drug development for the Inflammation-Oncology department at Amgen, where she researched COPD and asthma. Julie is currently an acting Pharmacology/Toxicology Team Leader at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the Division of Pharmacology/Toxicology for Immunology and Inflammation. She reviews investigational new drug (IND) applications and new drug applications (NDA) for various indications, including pulmonology, allergy, critical care, rheumatology, and transplant medicine. In the past year, Julie has also been involved in the process of approving new therapeutics for COVID-19. She is also a very active member of the American College of Toxicology since graduate school.

Supported by the UCLA NIEHS Training Grant in Molecular Toxicology T32ES015457. Questions? Email us at coeh@ph.ucla.edu

RSVP NOW!

In this seminar, Dr. Jacobs will present his laboratory’s research on pre-disease alterations of the gut microbiome in populations at high risk for IBD and the potential contribution of air pollution to IBD-associated dysbiosis. Unaffected first-degree relatives of IBD patients have been found in two family cohort studies to have microbiome profiles consistent with the dysbiosis seen in IBD patients. Microbiota transfer experiments into gnotobiotic mice demonstrated that dysbiotic microbiota from unaffected relatives can exacerbate murine colitis. Many genetic and environmental factors could contribute to dysbiosis in IBD. Among these, airborne ultrafine particle (UFP) exposure is one possibility that is consistent with epidemiologic data on rapidly rising incidence of IBD in newly industrialized societies. In animal models, Dr. Jacobs and his collaborators have demonstrated that oral and inhaled ultrafine particles can induce alterations in the small intestinal and colonic microbiome. Experiments are ongoing to assess the impact of the UFP-modulated microbiome on IBD susceptibility.

Dr. Jacobs is a gastroenterologist and scientist studying the role of intestinal microbes in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other disorders. He graduated magna cum laude with highest honors from Harvard University in 2003 with an AB in biochemistry. He subsequently received his MD from Harvard Medical School in 2008, graduating magna cum laude in a special field. During college and medical school, he performed research on mechanisms of antibody-mediated arthritis in the laboratory of Diane Mathis and Christophe Benoist with funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He completed internal medicine residency at Stanford University in 2010 then joined UCLA to pursue gastroenterology training in the Specialty Training and Advanced Research program. He was awarded a PhD in Cellular and Molecular Pathology in 2015 for his research on the IBD microbiome under the mentorship of Jonathan Braun and afterwards joined the UCLA Division of Digestive Diseases faculty. He co-founded the UCLA Microbiome Center and now directs the UCLA Microbiome Core, which provides a comprehensive suite of microbiome-related services to support microbiome research by the UCLA scientific community.

Supported by the UCLA NIEHS Training Grant in Molecular Toxicology T32ES015457.

Questions? Email us at coeh@ph.ucla.edu

RSVP NOW!

“Carry your Green Book with you…you may need it,” was a phrase printed on the cover of The Negro Motorist Green Book, a well-known guide that helped African American travelers find safe places to eat, sleep, and fuel their vehicles during the highly segregated Jim Crow era.  During this period, the Green Book, first published in 1936, and automobile ownership were  seminal gestures of independence and freedom for the “Negro motorist”.  However redlining, a policy established by the U.S. Federal Housing Administration only two years earlier represented a confinement of wealth and health for African American communities throughout the nation. Structural racism by way of land use policies, like redlining or exclusionary zoning, followed by the surge of suburbanization in the 1950s, and the bulldozing of highways through African American neighborhoods, not only buttressed the economic and racial segregation of American cities, but these practices also perpetuated inequities in transportation opportunities (e.g., transit deserts) and risks (e.g., Biking While Black) that are still observed today. This seminar will delve into historical and contemporary transit inequities stemming from structural racism within the United States through an examination of built and social environments. Disparities related to these environments and as well as health outcomes, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, will also be discussed.  It is anticipated that this seminar initiates an open dialogue of communication so that we can begin working together to achieve transit and environmental justice for everyone.

Jennifer D. Roberts is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology, School of Public Health at the University of Maryland College Park (UMD). Dr. Roberts is also the Founder and Director of the Public Health Outcomes and Effects of the Built Environment (PHOEBE) Laboratory as well as the Co-Founder and Co-Director of NatureRx@UMD, an initiative that emphasizes the natural environmental benefits interspersed throughout and around the UMD campus. Her scholarship focuses on the impact of built, social, and natural environments, including the institutional and structural inequities of these environments, on the public health outcomes of marginalized communities. More specifically, much of her research has explored the dynamic relationship between environmental, social, and cultural determinants of physical activity and using empirical evidence of this relationship to infer complex health outcome patterns and disparities as well as instigate a powerful shift that recognizes, breaks, and transforms these conditions and determinants of health.

Questions? Email us at coeh@ph.ucla.edu

RSVP NOW!

Heat waves are projected to increase in frequency and severity with climate change. Outdoor working populations are at risk of adverse health effects from heat. Comprehensively approaching prevention can be challenging, as risk factors occur at multiple levels, from land use to community, workplace, interpersonal, and individual factors, and on different time scales. In this talk, Dr. Spector will offer a multi-level framework of adaptation to heat for outdoor workers. She will present examples from epidemiologic, field experimental, and modelling studies in the Western United States and Indonesia to stimulate discussion of promising approaches to prevent adverse health effects from heat for working populations.

Dr. Spector is a physician-scientist with a focus on the prevention and management of adverse health outcomes related to heat exposure and other climate-related hazards in working populations. She is actively engaged in interdisciplinary research to evaluate health benefits of conservation interventions to inform progress toward sustainable development and climate goals. She has been a faculty member at the University of Washington since 2012 and holds appointments in the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS) and Medicine (General Internal Medicine). She is the Director of Occupational & Environmental Medicine at the University of Washington and Assistant Chair for Occupational Medicine Partnerships in DEOHS.

Questions? Email us at coeh@ph.ucla.edu

RSVP NOW!

Urinary metabolites of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are widely used in epidemiology studies as exposure biomarkers of air pollution. However, because PAHs are originated from petrogenic (e.g., oil drilling) and generic combustion sources, it is difficult to attribute PAHs-associated health effects to a specific pollution source. Certain PAH derivatives are more source-specific than PAHs. Hence, biomonitoring their metabolites may present a method to assess exposures to specific sources. In this talk, Dr. Lin will summarize findings from human studies linking urinary alkylated- and nitrated-PAHs metabolites to petrogenic processes and diesel exhaust, respectively. He will also present evidence from real-world studies in multiple urban locations associating these urinary biomarkers to human’s pathophysiologic changes.

Yan Lin is a postdoctoral associate in Jim Zhang’s laboratory at Duke Global Health Institute. He received his Ph.D. from UCLA EHS department in 2019 under the supervision of Yifang Zhu. Yan’s research primarily aims to illustrate the impact of air pollution on population’s exposure to toxic chemicals (e.g., polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and the subsequent health effects, which has resulted in more than 30 peer-reviewed publications in environmental and medical journals. His current research focused on (1). developing novel exposure biomarkers with increased specificity to pollution sources; and (2). examining biological mechanisms linking air pollution to cardiopulmonary diseases and adverse birth outcomes.

Questions? Email us at coeh@ph.ucla.edu

RSVP NOW!

Students in the EHS Department will share their summer internship experiences with presentations by:

Questions? Email us at coeh@ph.ucla.edu