The proposed Center for Environmental Health Sciences already has received the necessary University approvals and been given the green light at two Board of Regent’s meetings, with final action scheduled to take place in May.

The center will be housed in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the School of Pharmacy and Allied Health Sciences. Andrij Holian, professor of medicine and director of the toxicology program at the University of Texas Houston Health Science Center, has been named director of the UM center and will join the faculty full time in June.

From satellite studies of global climate change to backyard water monitoring, UM researchers already investigate and keep tabs on the health of the environment at all levels, according to pharmaceutical sciences Chair Vernon Grund.

“The new center will focus on environmental health from a human standpoint,” he says. “What are the potential hazards out there and how do they impact us?”

For instance, Grund says that many people have genes that make them predisposed to develop some kind of cancer, but they don’t because the genes have not been triggered. Toxins in the environment, he says, can act as potential triggers, so genetic studies will be an important component of the new center.

The center will provide a focal point for bringing together a critical mass of researchers and students to investigate mechanisms of diseases such as asthma, lung fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, autoimmune disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, cancers and the impacts that environmental factors have in causing or exacerbating these conditions.

The hope is that such studies will lead to new or better treatments, better assessment of the actual risks caused by environmental agents, and improved methods to reduce adverse health effects of these agents. The three main areas of research will be respiratory diseases and immunotoxicology, neurotoxicology, and molecular and genetic toxicology.

The center’s teaching efforts will focus on creating and supporting new programs in the undergraduate and graduate curriculums and be responsible for creating a new generation of talented investigators to continue these efforts.

“My vision for the next five years is to bring on board 10 or more new faculty members through national searches who will bring with them extensive experience in these fields,” Holian says. “We want to serve as a resource for collaborations, inside and outside UM, expertise, core facilities and teaching.”

No other such center exists in Montana; the closest related environmental health center is at the University of Washington in Seattle. Most support for UM’s Center for Environmental Health Sciences will come from external grants and federal appropriations.

One million dollars from the federal Department of Health and Human Services already has been earmarked for the center, along with funds from the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). No new state tax dollars are expected to go toward center funding.

However, how quickly the center grows and is able to implement its research programs will depend in part on the state’s commitment to matching EPSCoR funds, Grund says.