Vaia Lida Chatzi, MD, PhD, professor of population and public health science and pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC has received the highly competitive Revolutionizing Innovative, Visionary Environmental health Research (RIVER) award from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health. The $10 million grant will support research on the health effects of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), as well as efforts to translate these discoveries into real-world solutions. The new grant will fund research on the link between PFAS and metabolic conditions, including obesity, type 2 diabetes and metabolic-associated steatotic liver disease. Chatzi and her colleagues will combine several research methods to investigate these links and identify ways to reduce risk. They will conduct large-scale studies of more than 50,000 people, analyze human tissue samples in the lab, use advanced technology to search for a “signature” of PFAS exposure and work directly with affected communities to develop practical, tailored solutions.The project’s overarching goal is to build a “precision environmental health” approach that connects the dots between PFAS exposure, disease risk and ways to reduce that risk. In the coming years, the researchers aim to generate evidence to inform public health guidelines and regulatory decisions around PFAS. They also expect to create new tools to identify the earliest biological effects of PFAS exposure, as well as scalable strategies to reduce exposure and prevent disease.
