First Environmental Health Science FEST a Success
History buff John Schelp, from the NIEHS Office of Science Education and Diversity, leads walking tours of downtown Durham, starting off at the historic Carolina Theater, next door to the convention center.
More than 1,200 people from across the nation joined in the first-ever Environmental Health Science FEST held recently in Durham, N.C. The NIEHS Division of Extramural Research and Training planned the event in recognition of the NIEHS 50th anniversary.
The event included more than 250 posters, a sensors and technologies fair, a film festival, walking tours of downtown Durham and an evening 3-minute science talk competition.
Participants included representatives from federal agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, CDC and the Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry.
Discussions of how NIEHS-funded research fits within the larger biomedical research enterprise shaped one session, featuring representatives from NIH and six scientific societies.
At the sensors and technologies fair, Dr. Eben Cross (l), senior scientist at Aerodyne Research, Inc., describes the ARISense system, which measures gas phase pollutants, particulate matter and weather data.
Photo: Steve McCaw
Dr. Matt Gillman, director of the NIH Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program, participated via video. He spoke of the developmental origins of health and disease, saying that ECHO will work to understand the risks and to whom they apply, take action through clinical trials and practices and help fill unmet scientific needs.
Representatives of scientific societies also weighed in, including the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology, International Society of Exposure Science (ISES), American Public Health Association, Society of Toxicology, American Thoracic Society and Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society (EMGS).
Both ISES and EMGS will hold their 2017 annual meetings in nearby Raleigh, offering a chance for members to strengthen connections made at EHS FEST.—Kelly Lenox