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Interpretation and Use of Biomarkers
Additional Information
Current Research Tasks
Linking Exposure to Health Effects Using a Systems Biology Approach
Research will be performed to understand how biomarkers and systems biology can be used to assess linkages among complex chain of exposure, dose, distribution to target tissues, early biological effects, and adverse health outcomes. Methods are needed to identify and measure biomarkers that can be used in the reverse direction for exposure/dose assessment and in the forward direction for linking to biological effects. Development of pharmacokinetic models will help us understand the relationship between exposure and production of metabolites of the exogenous chemical, or other biologically relevant compounds produced in the metabolic pathway towards biological effects. Alternatively, changes in patterns of endogenous compounds in blood, breath or urine as a result of an environmental exposure may be measured. The use of biomarkers for assessing cumulative exposures to multiple chemicals will be of particular interest. Pre- and post-exposure differential protein expression (proteomics) or differential production of aldehydes and ketones (metabolomics) could signal pre-clinical adverse changes, and when coupled to exposure assessment, could provide information for assessing cumulative exposures and risks. Details of Linking Exposure to Health Effects Using a Systems Biology Approach
Linking Exposures to Internal Doses Using Biomarkers
Biomonitoring is a useful tool to help assess human exposures/internal doses to chemicals in the environment. In this task, we will investigate the current state-of-the-science regarding biomarkers of exposure for humans. This research will increase our understanding on how to properly use and interpret biomarkers to assess human exposures/internal doses to chemicals. We will focus on examining biomarker data that have been generated in previous studies to better quantify relationships between exposures and biomarkers. This will provide us with an improved understanding of the strengths and limitations of using biomarkers of exposure for humans, and will be critical in developing methods and approaches for measuring and interpreting biomarkers in future studies. In addition, this information is important for developing novel measurement, analytical, and statistical methods to quantify human exposures and internal doses to current chemicals of concern. Modeling tools and statistical analysis methods will be employed to determine how best to estimate external exposures using biomonitoring data from studies such as NHANES. These exposure estimates can then be used for developing more reliable risk assessments and better inform public health decisions. Details of Linking Exposures to Internal Doses Using Biomarkers