October 23, 2024 – A new faculty member appointed to the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health is studying a variety of aspects of how environmental factors affect health. These include potential harm from “toxin cocktails”, microorganisms in artificial water systems, and climate-related extreme weather events.
New faculty members include Peng Gao, assistant professor of environmental health and exposomics, who will start on November 15; Hannah Healy, assistant professor of environmental health and exposure science, starts January 1. and Amruta Nori-Sarma, assistant professor of environmental health and population sciences, whose first day at the school was Oct. 15.
Another new faculty member is Professor Mary Rice, who will begin October 1 as the new director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE) and Mark and Catherine Chair of Environmental Respiratory Health.・Started working as Winkler Associate Professor. . Dr. Rice, a pulmonology and critical care physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said that patients with chronic lung diseases are among those whose health is most at risk from air pollution from fossil fuel combustion. has spent his career treating patients with Her research focuses on the effects of environmental exposures, particularly air pollution and climate change, on the respiratory health of children and adults.
Mr. Rice’s appointment was announced on September 18 by Dean Andrea Vaccarelli and in a C-CHANGE press release.
Evaluation of exposome
Gao comes to the Harvard Chan School from the University of Pittsburgh, where he is an assistant professor in both the School of Public Health and the Swanson School of Engineering. While earning my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry, I worked to analyze contaminants in both environmental samples, such as drinking water, and biological samples, such as urine and tissue. This research led him to become increasingly interested in the field of environmental health.
Gao’s current research focus is on the “exposome,” a measure of the total amount of environmental exposure an individual receives over a lifetime, and how those exposures affect health. In particular, Gao focuses on environmental influences on various respiratory diseases such as asthma and lung cancer.
He called the thousands of chemicals and microorganisms that people are exposed to at the same time a “toxin cocktail” and said it was important to study the collective risks they posed. “We have to focus on how they interact and how they collectively contribute to chronic disease,” he said.
One of Gao’s major research projects involves assessing the extent and potential health effects of chemical contamination in East Palestine, Ohio. In the area, a train derailment in February 2023 spilled large amounts of hazardous chemicals onto the ground and leached into nearby waterways. “We will conduct a comprehensive risk assessment after analyzing water and soil samples to find all contaminants,” he said. The project was one of six funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in February 2024 to conduct research in the wake of the derailment.
Favorite hobby: Singing a cappella
Favorite movie: Marvel series
“Clean drinking water is a human right”
Healy currently works as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at Yale University, where he conducts fieldwork, laboratory work, and analytical studies of microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi, that grow in various crevices of the built environment, and their impact on microorganisms. I am researching. About health. She became interested in this field during the summer of her freshman year of college, when she worked on a farm in a remote part of Panama. Water treatment on farms was inadequate and residents routinely fell ill. She recalled thinking, “I want to know how to prevent this.” Access to clean drinking water is a basic human right. ”
Healy says there are millions of bacteria in every glass of water we drink. Most are harmless, but some can cause serious illness. These microorganisms can grow in places such as sink drains, water pipes, and sanitary systems. For example, a study Healy co-authored found that some large buildings closed during the pandemic had Legionella pneumophila in their water samples. Legionella pneumophila is a bacterium that is associated with water stagnation and is the cause of severe Legionnaires’ disease. Pneumonia, which can sometimes lead to death.
Healy said he is also interested in studying standing water in urban areas as a source of Legionella bacteria. Studies have shown that there is a strong correlation between Legionnaires’ outbreaks and heavy rains, occurring approximately two weeks after the outbreak. “It is thought that when a car drives over a puddle and gets splashed, the water turns into an aerosol and people can become infected by breathing in the aerosol,” she explained. She’s also researching the possibility of spreading Legionnaires’ disease through sink drains. “When you turn on your sink, some of the water becomes aerosolized and whatever is in it can reach you or land on nearby surfaces that you might touch.” she said.
Favorite hobby: Reading science fiction
The book series she recommends is The Broken Earth Trilogy by NK Jemison. “It’s fantasy, it’s science fiction, it’s apocalyptic. It has a lot of great themes that tie into environmental justice.”
Extreme weather and vulnerable people
Nori Salma, a former assistant professor at Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), can’t remember a time when she wasn’t interested in climate change. She grew up in a small town in North Carolina, where she regularly experienced hurricanes, which led her to think about climate patterns. Her interest was further piqued during a high school summer internship at the Environmental Protection Agency, where she collaborated with researchers studying how diesel particulates affect human health. “The way to really get people interested in their environmental exposures is to talk about how they affect their health; to make that connection, not just in the abstract.” , I was always aware of that,” she said.
Noli-Salma’s current research focuses on understanding the impact of extreme weather events due to climate change on vulnerable populations, particularly the impact on mental health. One of her projects uses data from the Boston Emergency Services Team (BEST), which provides psychiatric emergency services to publicly insured and uninsured patients in the Boston metropolitan area. to investigate mental health emergencies related to extreme heat waves. “What we’re seeing is a direct increase in the need for psychiatric emergency services among these patients as summer temperatures rise, and we’re seeing a direct increase in the need for psychiatric emergency services among these patients. The increase in consultation rates is higher than what we are observing among people with private health insurance who are of relatively high socio-economic status and have the means to protect themselves. They tend to be fulfilling,” she said.
Nori-Salma is also one of three principal investigators in a joint Harvard Chan School and BUSPH initiative aimed at advancing climate and health research. Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the BUSPH-HSPH CAFÉ Research Coordination Center provides access to data, fosters research collaborations, hosts conferences, and provides training to help the world implement the climate-health nexus. The purpose is to build a community of people.
Book she recommends: Rough Sleepers by Tracy Kidder, about Jim O’Connell, director of Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program.
Favorite hobby: Traveling. “My goal was to travel to 40 countries by the time I was 40. I’m almost there.”
– Karen Felscher
Photos by Mary Rice, Peng Gao, Hannah Healy, Amruta Nori-Salma.
