Environmental Exposures

Technologies for Generating Precise Measures of Environmental Exposures

The NIEHS is interested in developing and validating new products/devices, tools, assays to improve our ability to precisely measure environmental exposures to individuals with high temporal and spatial resolution. Ideally, the technologies, tools and assays will be of appropriate scale to be field deployable and/or wearable. These airborne/point of contact devices should be capable of measuring simultaneously and in near real time, multiple agents within a single exposure class (e.g. multiple types of metals, multiple size fractions of particulate matter, multiple components of diesel exhaust) and/or multiple agents across more than one exposure class. Exposures of interest include ozone, particulate matter, diesel exhaust, metals (e.g. arsenic, cadmium, mercury), volatile organic compounds, polybrominated diphenyls (PBDEs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), mold/microbial toxins, allergens and pesticides/herbicides. Examples include:

• Novel technologies and assays to generate precise, quantitative measures of human exposure at the point of contact (e.g., skin, breath, nasal mucosa).
• Remote sensing technologies for detecting, quantifying, and monitoring household exposures to toxicants and/or bioaerosols.
• Micro- and nano-scale technologies, such as lab-on-chip sensors, for detecting and quantifying simultaneously multiple environmental exposure agents in a specific chemical or biological class in environmental samples collected in the personal environment (e.g., breathing zone, clothing).
• Field deployable diagnostic devices capable of assaying biomarkers indicative of specific exposures in biological samples encountered in a mass casualty situation.

The NIEHS contact person is:

Jerrold J. Heindel, Ph.D.
Health Science Administrator, NIEHS
Tel (919) 541-0781
Fax (919) 541-5064