The NSF/NIEHS
Oceans
and Human Health Center at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School and its collaborators
propose to build on several decades of collaborative and
interdisciplinary research, education, and training to address
the new NIEHS-NSF research initiative in Oceans and Human
Health. The University of Miami Oceans & Human Health
Center will focus on issues relevant to the Southeastern
US and Caribbean, as well as global Sub/Tropical areas worldwide,
to integrate interdisciplinary research between biomedical
and oceanographic scientists.
The
Center includes three Research Projects. The Center investigators
are expanding existing research into Harmful Algal Blooms
(HABs) of the NIEHS Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Sciences
Center and the NIEHS-funded Florida International University
(FIU)-University of Miami (UM) ARCH Program to examine the
application of toxic algal culture, toxin analysis, remote
sensing, oceanography, and genomics to subtropical/tropical
HAB organism and toxin distribution with biological oceanographers,
biochemists, and plankton biologists. The Center also
explores the interaction between functional genomics and NSF-funded
oceanography of the subtropical/tropical HAB organism, Karenia
brevis, and its environmental interactions with collaborations
between oceanography, genomics, chemistry, and remote sensing.
Taking advantage of local subtropical/tropical conditions,
the Center explores the relationship between microbial
indicators and human health effects in sub/tropical recreational
marine waters, incorporating NSF-funded oceanographic current
modeling to predict ambient conditions, with environmental
engineers, remote sensors, microbiologists, physical oceanographic
modelers, and epidemiologists. There are three Facilities
Cores supporting this research in Genomics, Remote Sensing,
and Toxic Algal Culture. The Administrative Core encourages
additional integrated interdisciplinary and inter-institutional
collaboration through an active interdisciplinary Pilot Project
Program, as well as an outreach and education program, supported
by Internal and External Advisory Committees. To accomplish
this research program in subtropical/tropical oceans and
human health, the University of Miami Oceans & Human
Health Center collaborates with interdisciplinary scientists
at Florida International University (FIU), the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Miami Dade County
Dept of Health, the University of Florida, and other institutions,
as well as other Oceans and Human Health Centers and researchers.
The ultimate goals of Oceans and Human
Health Center at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School are
to foster innovative interdisciplinary scientific research,
and to train scientists, in the biological and oceanographic
sciences concerning issues affecting the subtropical and tropical
oceans, and their human populations. |
