About | Environmental Health @ TAMU

The Texas A&M Center for Environmental Health Research (TiCER)

Enhancing Public Health by Identifying, Understanding, and Reducing Adverse Environmental Health Risks

EHS Research

Expand and increase impact of EHS research at TAMU

Facilitate exchange of ideas and experimental approaches

Foster multidisciplinary collaborations that lead to high-impact discoveries

Identify common exposure and disease interests

Research Cores

Produce world class research in a variety of

Provide assistance to investigators at every experimental stage

Offer state-of-the-art technologies, expert consultation, and comprehensive training programs to Center members

Organization promotes interaction among Center members to

Community Engagement

Develop research foci directly influenced by community needs and concerns

Utilize existing programs and develop new resources for community engagement

Translate reserach into usable information for stakeholders and policy-making

Inform public on potential environmental hazards

Our vision for the Texas A&M Center for Environmental Health Research (TiCER) is to nucleate research and translational activities of faculty and trainees around the overarching theme “Enhancing Public Health by Identifying, Understanding, and Reducing Adverse Environmental Health Risks.” We will build on Texas A&M University’s history of state-wide outreach with a focus on underserved populations and achieve this vision by identifying and addressing environmental health concerns of affected communities and populations, facilitating multidisciplinary collaborations among Center members to elucidate mechanistic links between environmental exposure and adverse health outcomes, and translating mechanistic data to genetically heterogeneous populations.   The Center will provide strategic integration of the Facility Cores and Center members and facilitate exchange of novel research strategies and methods to:

identify and understand environmental risks
promote new cross-disciplinary collaborative projects
advance new avenues in environmental health research that address community stakeholder concerns
recruit new environmental health researchers and technologists
provide science-based outcomes that are actionable for stakeholders at the family, community, and policy-making level

The Center will provide an administrative infrastructure and technical support to serve as a catalyst for engaging members and stakeholders, promoting careers, and increasing the research impact of investigators across Texas A&M, as well as facilitating bi-directional engagement with affected communities and stakeholders statewide.

TiCER's Goals

To foster collaborations and intellectual exchange, the Center is organized around four research themes that build upon the aggregate strengths and expertise of Center members with the goal of enhancing interactions and stimulating formation of new collaborations, increasing productivity, and ensuring high-impact outcomes. These four themes are:

Stressors to Responses
Environment and Metabolism
Individuals to Populations
Community, Regulation and Policy

The four research themes were developed with input from Center members to provide a strategic organization that facilitates mechanistic studies, emphasizes common threads across research programs at Texas A&M linked to metabolic disturbances, and evaluates the robustness of results using more realistic, genetically diverse models, all of which ultimately will have a positive impact on affected communities and other stakeholders.

The organization of Center activities into thematic areas will enhance new interactions and collaborations. This structure will be augmented by Facility Cores organized across scales. The four Facility Cores are:

Integrated Health Sciences
Bio Science
Chem Science
Data Science

The Facility Cores will function as technological integrating units to increase research efficiency through technology access and facilitate translation-initiated collaborations.

A special emphasis of the Center is placed on the recruitment, promotion, and mentoring of junior faculty and future leaders in environmental health research through a multi-pronged program. Activity under this aim will inspire a diverse and well- trained cadre of scientists and leaders to advance environmental health science.

Although the Center will largely focus on recruitment and career development of faculty and future leaders, more junior trainees (undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral scholars) will also be engaged and promoted in partnership with the Texas A&M Faculty of Toxicology and the NEIHS-supported T32 training program that is focused on trainees.

Expansion of environmental health research at Texas A&M will be enhanced by a robust PPP that will bring new investigators into environmental health research, build collaborative teams, and provide Center members support for expansion into new projects that are both investigator-initiated and motivated by community and other stakeholder concerns.

Pilot Project Program (PPP). The overall concept of the PPP is to promote the Center mission by stimulating new investigations to expand the footprint of environmental health research at Texas A&M. This will be achieved by funding outstanding and innovative environmental health research projects. It is expected that these projects will address the major thematic research areas of the Center, attract new faculty into environmental health research, facilitate collaborative teams, and promote investigations into community and stakeholder environmental concerns. The PPP will also serve to encourage interactions among Center members, use of Facility Cores, and participation of young investigators by integrating them into the Center.

The Center will create an environment that informs Center members on community concerns and health challenges, stimulates research into solutions that are directly applicable, and translates discoveries back to communities and other stakeholders.

Community Engagement Core (CEC). The CEC is the primary conduit for bi-directional communication between Center members and communities across Texas. The mission of the CEC is to facilitate communication of community environmental health concerns to researchers, while at the same time, supporting translation and dissemination of environmental health research results to residents of environmental justice neighborhoods and broader populations of stakeholders.

TiCER Leadership

Director

David Threadgill Ph.D.

University Distinguished Professor
Tom and Jean McMullin Chair of Genetics
Department of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, College of Medicine
Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences

DEPUTY Director

Weston Porter Ph.D.

Professor
Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences
College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences

TiCER Members

All TiCER Research Themes

Stressors to Reponse

Environment and Metabolism

Individuals to Populations

Community, Regulation and Outreach

Interdisciplinary Themes

Ivan Rusyn

Principal Investigator

Integrated Health Sciences Facility Core

Individuals to Populations

Natalie Johnson

Co Investigator

Integrated Health Sciences Facility Core

Individuals to Populations

Benjamin Morpugo

Co-Investigator

Integrated Health Science Facility Core

Individuals to Populations

Itza Mendoza-Sanchez

Assistant Professor

Integrated Health Science Facility Core

Individuals to Populations

Andrei Golovko

Production Manager and Senior Scientist at TIGM

Integrated Health Science Facility Core

Interdisciplinary Themes

Phillip West

Member

Integrated Health Sciences Facility Core

Environment and Metabolism, Stressors to Response

Load More TiCER Members

Career Development

TBA

The Texas A&M Center for Environmental Health Research (TiCER)

EHS Research

Research Cores

Community Engagement

TiCER's Goals

TiCER Leadership

David Threadgill Ph.D.

Weston Porter Ph.D.

TiCER Members

Career Development

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