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Agency overview | |
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Formed | 1966 |
Jurisdiction | Federal Government of the United States |
Agency executives |
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Parent department | Department of Health and Human Services |
Parent agency | National Institutes of Health |
Website | www |
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) conducts research into the effects of the environment on human disease, as one of the 27 institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is located in the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, and is the only primary division of the NIH located outside of the Washington metropolitan area.
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is a part of the National Institutes of Health, which is in turn a part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The mission of the NIEHS is to "reduce the burden of human illness and disability by understanding how the environment influences the development and progression of human disease". NIEHS focuses on basic science, disease-oriented research, global environmental health, clinical research, and multidisciplinary training for researchers.
NIEHS researchers and grantees have shown the deadly effects of asbestos exposure, the developmental impairment of children exposed to lead and the health effects of urban pollution. This is the laboratory of the 1994 co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in medicine, Dr. Martin Rodbell. Here scientists that same year had a key role in identifying the first breast cancer gene, BRCA1, and, in 1995, identified a gene that suppresses prostate cancer. Here is where genetically altered mice have been developed—to improve and shorten the screening of potential toxins and to help develop aspirin-like anti-inflammatory drugs with fewer side effects.
The Institute funds centers for environmental health studies at universities across the United States.
In 1966, U.S. Surgeon General William H. Stewart helped to create a Division of Environmental Health Sciences within the NIH. [1] Three years later, the division became its own institute, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Past directors include Paul Kotin, David Rall, Kenneth Olden, David A. Schwartz, and Linda Birnbaum.
Portrait | Directors | Took office | Left office |
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Paul Kotin | November 1, 1966 | February 28, 1971 | |
David Rall | March 1, 1971 | October 1, 1990 | |
David G. Hoel (acting) | October 1990 | June 1991 | |
Kenneth Olden | 1991 | 2005 | |
David A. Schwartz | May 22, 2005 | August 19, 2007 | |
Samuel H. Wilson (acting) | August 20, 2007 | December 2008 | |
Linda Birnbaum | January 16, 2009 | October 3, 2019 | |
Richard Woychik [3] | June 7, 2020 | present | |
The NIEHS is one of 27 institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is a component of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). NIEHS is located on 375 acres (1.52 km2) in Research Triangle Park (RTP), North Carolina. Its current director is Dr. Richard Woychik, who is also concurrently the director of the National Toxicology Program. The deputy director is Dr. Trevor Archer. The director of the NIEHS reports to the director of the NIH, of which the NIEHS is a member agency. Currently, Dr. Lawrence A. Tabak is the acting director of the NIH; he in turn reports to the secretary of the HHS, Xavier Becerra.[ citation needed ]
NIEHS is composed of:
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH, is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late 1880s and is now part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Many NIH facilities are located in Bethesda, Maryland, and other nearby suburbs of the Washington metropolitan area, with other primary facilities in the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina and smaller satellite facilities located around the United States. The NIH conducts its own scientific research through the NIH Intramural Research Program (IRP) and provides major biomedical research funding to non-NIH research facilities through its Extramural Research Program.
The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library.
The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) is one of the institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
William H. Stewart was an American pediatrician and epidemiologist. He was appointed tenth Surgeon General of the United States from 1965 to 1969.
The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) is one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It supports and conducts research aimed at improving the health of children, adults, families, and communities, including:
An environmental factor, ecological factor or eco factor is any factor, abiotic or biotic, that influences living organisms. Abiotic factors include ambient temperature, amount of sunlight, and pH of the water soil in which an organism lives. Biotic factors would include the availability of food organisms and the presence of biological specificity, competitors, predators, and parasites.
David Platt Rall was a cancer specialist and a leader in environmental health studies, whose work in environmental health helped turn it into a scientific discipline. Rall also advanced public health and prevention. He directed the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences from 1971 to 1990, year in which he retired. His work on toxicology and carcinogenesis was recognized by his appointment as the first director of the National Toxicology Program in 1978. He held the rank of Assistant Surgeon General in the United States Public Health Service. He also chaired the World Health Organization's Program on Chemical Safety.
The National Toxicology Program (NTP) is an inter-agency program run by the United States Department of Health and Human Services to coordinate, evaluate, and report on toxicology within public agencies.
Bernadine Patricia Healy was an American cardiologist and the first female director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM) coordinates U.S. federal government evaluation of new, revised, and alternative test methods. Alternative methods are methods for safety testing of chemicals and chemical products that use fewer or no animals or that minimize or prevent animal pain and distress.
Lana Skirboll is the former director of the National Institutes of Health Office of Science Policy.
Linda Silber Birnbaum is an American toxicologist, microbiologist and the former director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, as well as the National Toxicology Program, positions she held from January 18, 2009 until October 3, 2019. She also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health and as a member of the editorial board of Environment International.
The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) is part of the United States National Institutes of Health, which in turn is part of the Department of Health and Human Services. NIDDK is approximately the fifth-largest of the 27 NIH institutes. The institute's mission is to support research, training, and communication with the public in the topic areas of "diabetes and other endocrine and metabolic diseases; digestive diseases, nutritional disorders, and obesity; and kidney, urologic, and hematologic diseases". As of 2021, the Director of the institute is Griffin P. Rodgers, who assumed the position on an acting basis in 2006 and on a permanent basis in 2007.
The Dr. Nathan Davis Awards are presented annually by the American Medical Association (AMA) and awarded to elected and career public servants in national, state, and local governments for outstanding government service. These awards are named for the founder of the American Medical Association, Nathan Smith Davis.
Larry W. Robertson is an American chemist, microbiologist and toxicologist. He is professor at the University of Iowa, Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, known for his work on toxicology of POPs and PCBs, which are important environmental pollutants.
Dr. Kenneth Olden is a scientist whose research revolves around diseases, such as cancers, and how chemicals and environmental factors affect them. He was director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and National Toxicology Program, being the first African-American to head an National Institutes of Health (NIH) institute, a position he held from 1991 to 2005. He was also the director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and overseer of the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). He is a scientist who expressed that socioeconomic factors are related to cancer survival rates and need to be given more attention in scientific research. He has made multiple discoveries in the field, such as finding that the sweetener saccharin is not a chemical that causes cancer and funding research on the effects of bus exhaust on minority children in low-income housing residing in New York City. He faced controversy from multiple organizations over slow assessments during his time overseeing IRIS. He is currently 81 years old.
Darlene Dixon is an American veterinary scientist and toxicologic pathologist researching the pathogenesis/carcinogenesis of tumors affecting the reproductive tract of rodents and humans and assessing the role of environmental and endogenous hormonal factors in the growth of these tumors. She is a senior investigator at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Gwen W. Collman is an American environmental epidemiologist. Collman is acting deputy director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and works as director of the division of extramural research and training.
Trevor K. Archer is an American public health researcher who is a National Institutes of Health Distinguished Investigator and deputy director at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. He leads the Chromatin and Gene Expression Group, who investigate chromatin, epigenetics and embryonic stem cells pluripotency.