CACHET - IHSFC

1. INTEGRATED HEALTH SCIENCES FACILITY CORE: ABSTRACT
The Integrated Health Sciences Facility Core (IHSFC) will provide infrastructure and highly focused multidisciplinary
services to CACHET members including access to cohorts and bio-banking; environmental health
sciences (EHS) design, implementation and applied research support services; innovative approaches to
population exposure estimation using both traditional and cutting-edge techniques including device, sensors
and wearables and mobile app technologies; and novel statistical services with a focus on challenges in
geospatial modeling and evaluation of mixtures. This array of services will provide tools to translate
fundamental research into actionable knowledge supporting disease prevention and improving environmental
health outcomes across the communities in Chicago. The IHSFC will have leadership at both University of
Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and University of Chicago (UofC), and will build upon the existing research resources
at these institutions to ensure that Core support is used to develop additional key resources for conducting
EHS work. Many of the resources that the IHSFC uses to meet the EHS translational research needs of
CACHET investigators that exist at our two institutions have been modified, enhanced, centralized and
efficiently organized between the two institutions by leveraging the institution-specific strengths and growing
Core resources. IHSFC personnel include experts in epidemiological study design, population and clinicbased
studies, specimen collection and quality assurance, exposure technology and data analytics to support
superior exposure assessment, and statistical methods relevant for modern environmental health studies.
IHSFC personnel will collaborate with personnel in the Environmental Biomarkers Facility Core (EBC) to
address molecular assay requirements involving biomarkers of environmental exposures and environmental
signatures in human biological materials. The IHSFC will also provide interpretation of results and facilitate
dissemination of the results to Chicago communities and beyond in conjunction with the Community
Engagement Core (CEC). In addition, the IHSFC will work with the CEC as well as relevant Institutional CTSA
and Cancer Center Cores to translate community-based EHS questions and concerns into specific scientific
hypotheses that may be supported by CACHET through the Pilot Project Program (PPP). Furthermore, the
IHSFC will facilitate projects that utilize the Human Health Exposure Analysis Resource (HHEAR), to further
enhance CACHET opportunities to conduct expanded target and untargeted analyses of environmental
relevance.

Grant Number: 5P30ES027792-08
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: Briseis Aschebrook-Kilfoy