{"id":2013,"date":"2006-09-12T00:46:20","date_gmt":"2006-09-12T00:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/2006\/09\/acs-i-love-technology.html"},"modified":"2006-09-12T00:46:20","modified_gmt":"2006-09-12T00:46:20","slug":"acs_i_love_technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/2006\/09\/acs_i_love_technology.html","title":{"rendered":"ACS: I love technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Schwartz<\/a> gave a great talk<\/a> this afternoon – he’s the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences<\/a>, which recently created the ‘Genes and Environment Initiative,’ a five-year research effort that hopes to identify the genetic and environmental causes of asthma, arthritis, and other common diseases.<\/p>\n

The initiative has two components: the first involves “”https:\/\/www.niehs.nih.gov\/oc\/news\/gei.htm">efficiently analyzing genetic variation in groups of patients with specific illnesses<\/a>," and the second involves the development of new devices that can monitor “”https:\/\/www.niehs.nih.gov\/oc\/news\/gei.htm">personal environmental exposures that interact with genetic variations and result in human diseases<\/a>."<\/p>\n

Why – you might ask – is the NIH<\/span> spending approximately 192 million dollars on this new initiative? Well, we know that “”https:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/cgi\/content\/full\/296\/5568\/695">[g]enetic and environmental factors, including diet and life-style, both contribute to cardiovascular disease, cancers, and other major causes of mortality<\/a>," and there’s a growing body of evidence that suggests that environmental factors are responsible for a large percentage<\/a> of these diseases.<\/p>\n

The NIEHS<\/span> will use a portion of this money to fund grants that involve “”https:\/\/www.niehs.nih.gov\/oc\/news\/gei.htm">innovative new technologies to measure environmental toxins, dietary intake and physical activity, and to determine an individual’s biological response to those influences, using new tools of genomics, proteomics and metabolomics<\/a>," so this looks like an excellent opportunity for chemists interested in complex diseases and human health.<\/p>\n

For more information on the NIEHS<\/span> 2006\u20132011 Strategic Plan, see “”https:\/\/www.niehs.nih.gov\/external\/plan2006\/StrategicPlan2006final.pdf">New Frontiers in Environmental Sciences and Human Health<\/a>."<\/p>\n

Joshua<\/p>\n

Joshua Finkelstein (Associate Editor, Nature<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Schwartz gave a great talk this afternoon \u2013 he\u2019s the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which recently created the \u2018Genes and Environment Initiative,\u2019 a five-year research effort that hopes to identify the genetic and environmental causes of asthma, arthritis, and other common diseases.  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conference-reports","category-other-authors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2013\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}