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Geriatrics Expert Named
| Mailman School Researchers to Delve Deeper Into Childhood Asthma/Air Pollution Connection $10 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences enables scientists to continue groundbreaking work |
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The Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) has conducted groundbreaking research for a decade on the effects of early exposure to these air pollutants. “Before 1998 we were aware that environmental exposures were of concern in the development of asthma, but no one had directly measured those exposures in children and their mothers, starting prenatally, and then assessed their impact,” says Frederica Perera, Dr.P.H., professor of environmental health sciences at the Mailman School, director of CCCEH and a pioneer in the field of molecular epidemiology.
Dr. Perera and Rachel Miller, M.D., associate professor of clinical medicine and environmental health sciences, director of the CCCEH asthma project and lead physician-scientist of the new DISCOVER Center at the Mailman School, with other CCCEH faculty, have studied more than 700 women and children in northern Manhattan since 1998 for exposure to particulates and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The women’s in utero and postnatal exposure to diesel exhaust and other urban combustion sources are repeatedly monitored through portable personal monitoring and in-home testing. The team has found virtually 100 percent exposure to pollutants among these children, and an association with asthma-related symptoms is becoming apparent. The CCCEH study also assesses the impact of pollutants on cognitive development and cancer risk.
“The prevalence of asthma in this study cohort is about 30 percent,” says Dr. Miller, who adds that children in northern Manhattan are disproportionately affected by asthma. The reported asthma rate in Harlem school children is 25 percent – among the highest in the nation.
Among the study’s findings to date:
- Combined prenatal exposure to airborne PAHs and postnatal second hand smoke results in the increased likelihood of respiratory symptoms and possible asthma at age 2 years.
- More than half the babies in the study were born with an immune response to cockroach proteins. Studies regarding the clinical signifi- cance of this finding are under way.
- About 40 percent of babies in the study were born with DNA damage associated with carcinogenic PAHs.
In a pilot study among this same cohort, Dr. Perera and CCCEH colleagues, in collaboration with Dr. Shuk Mei Ho of the Environmental Health Sciences Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati, found evidence that changes in the methylation of certain genes may be a risk factor for parental report of asthma in childhood. Methylation of DNA has been associated with the loss of expression of that particular gene.
The $10 million DISCOVER grant (which stands for disease investigation through specialized clinically oriented ventures in environmental research) will allow these researchers to expand the original study’s scope and look much more widely across the genome at different genes, as well as those known to be asthma-related. One of the four projects funded by the new DISCOVER grant – “Genes and Asthma” – led by Dr. Perera in collaboration with Dr. Ho, will determine whether biomarkers, such as environmentally related changes in the expression of specific genes in utero, can predict childhood asthma. Such biomarkers would identify children at high risk of asthma so that interventions to prevent and improve clinical treatment for asthma might be developed.
“The center’s primary goal has always been to improve the health and development of children through community-based participatory research,” Dr. Perera says. Indeed, testimony and data from the center have been cited as having helped lead to legislation in New York to reduce the idling of buses and trucks and mandate cleaner-burning diesel fuel. “This grant will help us give parents, physicians and communities the tools they need to make informed decisions to improve the health of their children.”
—Gina Shaw
| Mailman School Tackles Asthma on Many Fronts In addition to Dr. Perera’s study – “Genes and Asthma” – the DISCOVER grant will support three other novel research projects:  Rachel Miller, M.D., associate professor of clinical medicine, director of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health asthma project, and lead physician-scientist of the DISCOVER Center, is PI of a study that seeks to determine at what point young inner-city children are developmentally most vulnerable to diesel-related and other urban air pollution. She and her colleagues will investi gate the relationship among pollution exposure, obesity, and an increase in allergy and asthma-related symptoms.Patrick Kinney, Sc.D., associate professor of clinical public health, and Steven Chillrud, Ph.D., senior research scientist at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and co-director of the Exposure Assessment Facility Core in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, will lead a study that collects data from asthmatic and non-asthmatic children who will wear a unique air sampling system that enables monitoring of their exposure to diesel exhaust and other pollutants and their effects on pulmonary function.Phillip Factor, D.O., associate professor of medicine, will examine the effects of traffic-related pollutants on beta 2 adrenergic cell receptors. Previous research has shown certain air pollutants interfere with these cell receptors, rendering some asthma medications useless and, in some cases, even worsening the asthmatic condition. |
