Director:  Cornelis J. Elferink, PhD  

Deputy Director:  Lawrence C. Sowers, PhD

The mission of the Sealy Center for Environmental Health Medicine, AKA UTMB Center in Environmental Toxicology (UTMB-CET) is to explore the environmental basis of human diseases by fostering collaborative interactions amongst multidisciplinary basic and clinical investigators pursuing both fundamental and translational research pertinent to the effects of environmental factors on human health. The UTMB-CET is housed at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and is the only NIEHS environmental health center located on the Gulf of Mexico coast, near the nation's busiest shipping port (Port of Houston) and an expansive petrochemical refining and manufacturing infrastructure. Our proximity to sources of many significant environmental problems makes UTMB a compelling site for such an environmental health sciences center. The underlying causes of these problems include the composition of the natural environment, meteorological conditions (namely hurricanes), population density, personal and commercial transportation patterns, and the endemic petrochemical industry. Some of the most serious environmental issues are ozone pollution, emissions of fine particulates, hazardous chemical releases, hazardous waste sites, and PCB/dioxin contamination of the marine biota. The UTMB-CET investigators concentrate their efforts in three disease categories: 1) asthma pathogenesis; 2) environmentally-linked carcinogenesis; and 3) disease states induced by reactive oxygen stress.

Director:  Cornelis J. Elferink, PhD  

Deputy Director:  Lawrence C. Sowers, PhD

The mission of the Sealy Center for Environmental Health Medicine, AKA UTMB Center in Environmental Toxicology (UTMB-CET) is to explore the environmental basis of human diseases by fostering collaborative interactions amongst multidisciplinary basic and clinical investigators pursuing both fundamental and translational research pertinent to the effects of environmental factors on human health. The UTMB-CET is housed at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and is the only NIEHS environmental health center located on the Gulf of Mexico coast, near the nation's busiest shipping port (Port of Houston) and an expansive petrochemical refining and manufacturing infrastructure. Our proximity to sources of many significant environmental problems makes UTMB a compelling site for such an environmental health sciences center. The underlying causes of these problems include the composition of the natural environment, meteorological conditions (namely hurricanes), population density, personal and commercial transportation patterns, and the endemic petrochemical industry. Some of the most serious environmental issues are ozone pollution, emissions of fine particulates, hazardous chemical releases, hazardous waste sites, and PCB/dioxin contamination of the marine biota. The UTMB-CET investigators concentrate their efforts in three disease categories: 1) asthma pathogenesis; 2) environmentally-linked carcinogenesis; and 3) disease states induced by reactive oxygen stress.