Federal toxicology center awarded to UW-Madison

A new national Center in Developmental and Molecular Toxicology has been awarded to UW–Madison for the next four years.

Funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) – and one of a network of 26 in the country – the center will focus on the basic processes through which environmental agents cause disruption to animal development. The NIEHS award is for roughly $3 million over four years.

The center will concentrate its research on how environmental chemicals affect the human body. Many environmental agents, such as infections, pollutants, pharmaceutical agents, alcohol and smoking, have been linked to birth defects, cancer and a host of other health problems.

Colin Jefcoate, a pharmacology professor in the UW Medical School, will leave his current position as director of UW–Madison’s Environmental Toxicology Center (ETC) to lead the new center. Richard Peterson, a professor in the School of Pharmacy, will serve as associate director.

Jefcoate is an expert on processes by which environmental chemicals are activated in the body into more toxic and carcinogenic forms. Peterson has an international reputation for his research on how Dioxin disrupts developmental processes.

The NIEHS center brings together extensive expertise at the UW–Madison campus. Specialists in developmental and reproductive biology are teamed with researchers who study the disruption to animal development by environmental agents and with health practitioners. Part of this collaboration includes a partnership with the UW Comprehensive Cancer Center to study early life environmental impacts on breast cancer.

On the national level, the center will be a part of the NIEHS extramural program and a network of other NIEHS centers sharing information. It is also building connections to other centers and departments on campus to best utilize the wealth of knowledge available here.

Center funding will be made available to researchers working to better understand disruption to animal development by environmental agents. In addition, the NIEHS center will fund efforts to communicate the basic concepts of environmental toxicology to K-12 schools and the general public.

For more information, contact Pat Dyjak at (608) 263-5557, or email at prdyjak@facstaff.wisc.edu.