"Mount Sinai Gets $8.5M For Exposomic Research" - Robin Schatz

The National Institute of Environmental Health Science has awarded $8.5 million to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The five-year grant will support the development of laboratories and other infrastructure for research into environmental exposures at the school's Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health and its Institute for Exposomic Research. "Mount Sinai has made a big investment in trying to better understand the role environment plays in shaping both health and disease," said Robert Wright, MD, chair of the Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health and director of the Institute for Exposomic Research, which started about a year ago. "Genetics alone doesn't explain why people get sick. We think environment is the missing piece of the puzzle." The institute will study thousands of chemicals at once and use data techniques pioneered in genomics to prioritize them, Dr. Wright said. The hope is that the research will lead to new strategies to prevent and treat diseases that have an environmental component, such as autism, asthma, cancer and chronic lung diseases.

- Robert O. Wright, MD, Professor, System Chair, Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Director, Mount Sinai Institute for Exposomic Research

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