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University of Pennsylvania

Superfund Research Program

Administrative Core

Project Leader: Ian A. Blair
Co-Investigator: Trevor M. Penning
Grant Number: P42ES023720
Funding Period: 2014-2020
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Project Summary (2014-2020)

The Administrative Core takes a leadership role in ensuring the synthesis of findings and activities from research projects and cores of the Penn SRP towards translating research on asbestos fate, exposure remediation, and adverse health effects. In addition, direct lines of communication between the Administrative Core, the Community Engagement Core, the Research Translation Core, the Biostatistics Research Core, and the Interdisciplinary Training Core (DTC) will be maintained.

These goals are accomplished through the leadership of two senior highly accomplished investigators - Ian A. Blair, Ph.D., (Director) and Trevor M. Penning, Ph.D., (Deputy Director). Both of these investigators have had highly productive scientific careers, each with more than 250 publications. It is noteworthy that the Penn SRP is underpinned by four highly significant entities. First, the Penn Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology (CEET) provides an academic home, with enormous resources to draw upon. Second, the CEET Translational Biomarker Core can provide an array of instrumentation and resources for conducting biomarker discovery and validation studies. Third, the CEET Integrative Health Sciences Facility Core can provide support for human subject study design and the storage of annotated biospecimens within a virtual repository. Fourth, the existing CEET Certificate Program and T32 Training Program in Environmental Health Sciences provide resources of potential students and postdoctoral fellows who could be recruited into the Penn SRP Center. Highly trained administrative and fiscal oversight personnel are available to ensure that the Core runs smoothly.

The Penn SRP Center’s Administrative Core establishes lines of communication among the Center Project and Core leaders in order to encourage and ensure there is integration and interaction between the environmental science (Remediation of Asbestos Particles and Mobility and Fate of Asbestos Particles) and biomedical projects (Social Determinants of Risk and Attitudes About Asbestos in a Superfund Environmental Justice Community, Animal Models of Mesothelioma, Chemoprevention of Asbestos-induced Lung Diseases, and Biomarkers of Asbestos Exposure) under the following four Specific Aims:

  1. Manages the fiscal resources of the Penn-SRP Center, submit all required Progress Reports, and maintain a working relationship with SRP Officers at NIEHS.
  2. Provides oversight to the success of the SRP Center by scheduling monthly meetings of the Executive Committee comprised of all Project and Core leaders, by scheduling annual meetings of the External Advisory Board, and by conducting formative and summative evaluations. An important goal of the Penn SRP is to foster collaborative transdisciplinary research involving six different Departments in two Schools at Penn as well as Fox-Chase Cancer Center.
  3. Fosters creative inter-disciplinary collaboration between investigators within the Penn-SRP Center by organizing and scheduling monthly research in progress talks to be given by all Penn-SRP Center investigators, including students and postdoctoral trainees and by scheduling with the IDTC monthly seminars and an annual symposium. The SRP annual symposium will coincide with the EAB annual meeting so that external advisors and NIEHS staff can be informed of Center progress.
  4. Promotes translation of Penn SRP findings by working with the Research Translation and Community Outreach Cores.

 

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