The Researcher's Perspective Podcast Interview with Dr. Linda Birnbaum Narrator: EHP presents The Researcher's Perspective. Ernie Hood: Welcome to the premier edition of The Researcher's Perspective, the new podcast from Environmental Health Perspectives, the monthly journal of the NIEHS, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. With each episode of The Researcher's Perspective, we will bring you important and exciting information from the world of the environmental health sciences. I'm your host, science writer Ernie Hood. As we mark the beginning of our new program, it is entirely appropriate that we launch the show by welcoming the brand-new director of the NIEHS and the National Toxicology Program, Dr. Linda Birnbaum. Prior to her appointment in late 2008, Dr. Birnbaum was Director of the Experimental Toxicology Division at the EPA in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, which is part of the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory. She has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Illinois-Urbana, and held several positions at NIEHS before joining the EPA in 1989. Dr. Birnbaum is traveling today and is speaking to us from the airport in Washington, DC. Dr. Birnbaum, welcome to The Researcher's Perspective, and welcome back to NIEHS! Dr. Birnbaum: Thank you. It's certainly my pleasure. Ernie Hood: As we speak, how long have you actually been on the job at the institute? Dr. Birnbaum: I think it's seven weeks. Ernie Hood: And how has your reception been? As a member of the family, so to speak, I would imagine you've gotten quite a warm welcomeÉ Dr. Birnbaum: Absolutely. It's been very, very gratifying, and very friendly. Ernie Hood: Dr. Birnbaum, I think it's safe to say that your appointment marks the beginning of a new era at NIEHS/NTP, especially coming as it does simultaneously with the beginning of a new administration in Washington that is expected to be more supportive of science and the research enterprise . . . what are some of the early actions you've taken to establish the tone and approach for your leadership at NIEHS? Dr. Birnbaum: The first thing I did was close the institute on the day of Obama's inauguration, which was also really my first day, because we had one of those unexpected and infrequent North Carolina snowstorms. Actually, it worked out very well, because it enabled all of my staff to participate in the historical events of January 20, which was very exciting. So my first day actually in the office was the following day. Some of the things that I've done kind of mimic or are in parallel with some of the things that our new president is trying to do, which is open up the process, emphasize scientists' integrity, be transparent in decision-making, increase communications, try to achieve consensus as we move forward, and one thing that I've been trying to do right from the beginning is to try to identify some low- hanging fruit that I can identify to make things happen quickly. So I've done some simple things like increase our interactions with EPA, with whom we share a campus. Now the NIEHS investigators can come in through the EPA gate and drive right around the campus, which before tended to get blocked at six o'clock at night. We're working to establish a continuously running shuttle between the two NIEHS facilities, our main building on the lake and the new rental facility that we have about a mile away, where many of our guest scientists and administrative people are located. So those are some of the things I've already tried to do. Ernie Hood: You've made important contributions in recent years with your groundbreaking research on the health effects of environmental exposures, particularly in the area of human exposures to flame retardants such as PBDE. Do you intend to continue to actively engage in research, or will you concentrate on your administrative responsibilities at NIEHS? Dr. Birnbaum: There are many ways to be active in scientific research, and I've decided that at least in the short run I'm not going to have my own laboratory, because I do need to concentrate on providing scientific leadership as well as management to the NIEHS. But I will continue my mentoring of students and postdocs, and my collaborating with many investigators, not only at NIEHS but throughout the world. Ernie Hood: What do you see as the major challenges facing the institute today in effectively carrying out its mission? Does it all come down to funding, or are the issues deeper than that alone? Dr. Birnbaum: I think that the issues we're dealing with today, in terms of questions in environmental health, are very difficult questions. We're looking at complex diseases that have complex genetics and complex exposures. Just like in the field of genetic diseases, we've really moved beyond the one gene, one disease kind of paradigm. When we're talking about environmental exposures, we're talking about multiple kinds of environmental exposures, not only multiple chemicals, but chemicals plus stress, plus lifestyle factors, plus built environment, plus temperatureÑmany kinds of things that can impact or that can play a role in how the environment can affect our health. So these are much more complex issues than I think we've tried to deal with in the past. Ernie Hood: Environmental health science has been a rapidly evolving field in recent yearsÉwhat is your assessment of the current state of the science? Has the field matured and really started making major contributions to public health, or is that high value in terms of translation still just over the horizon? Dr. Birnbaum: I think there's always more we can do, but I think that we've had some major successes. I could think of the example of lead, where the basic research that was done led to an understanding of the fact that there is really no safe level for lead and has led to regulations which have had a major impact in causing dramatic drops in the level of blood lead in most of our population. In addition, there's a lot of stuff that's been done with air pollution, where we now understand that effects are being observed in people at lower amounts, lower levels of air pollution than we ever thought were dangerous before. And we're also getting a better handle on what air pollution might do to people. For many years we focused on the effects on the lung and respiratory disease, but we're beginning to understand that certain kinds of air pollution really target the heart, and our vascular system. We're also beginning to understand that exposure to air pollutants to embryos or young children can in fact have long-lasting effects on their health. So I think those are just a few. I could cite many other examples. Asthma is another example where we're getting much better understanding that, for example, there are things that we can do to reduce the incidence of asthma in people for example living in the inner cities, where you have high levels of pollution from dust mites or cockroaches. If we can clean up the homes, we can do a lot better. Ernie Hood: What do you see as the major unanswered questions in the field today? How can the NIEHS effectively contribute to finding answers to those questions? Dr. Birnbaum: Well, I think the questions are almost unlimited, as are the answers, and I think we have to have a systematic, consistent approach where we try to say what is the real question that we're trying to answer, and not always try to ask the same questions that we've asked in the past. So we need to think more broadly. The example I said a minute ago about the cardiovascular effects of air pollution; those are things that we never even thought about until maybe ten years ago, when in fact we began to seeÉIt was really led by epidemiology studies, studies of human populations, showing that there was increased mortality and hospital visits, for example, at times of serious air pollution, which tended to drop when there wasn't air pollution. And when we began to find out what was really causing these problems, it turned out to be heart disease. So then we went back and we did animal models so that we could get a better understanding of what caused this. I think some of the key areas that we're focusing on are the issues at the intersection between the environment and genetics, so that we're beginning to understand that if we do an epidemiology study in a large population, we can see a risk, but it's very limited. If we knew who the real people were at risk, we might find a very high risk in that percentage of the population. And that's because we all have slightly different genes which can in fact impact how we respond to different kinds of exposures. So that's a very key area. I think another very key area that we need to be thinking about is the impact of climate change on health. Climate change is going to bring around changes in temperatures, changes in floods and droughts, changes in exposure to chemicals, changes in infectious disease, and we need to be primed to understand what those effects may be so we can begin to develop preventative strategies to avoid health effects. Ernie Hood: Dr. Birnbaum, as the director of an institute responsible for a $730 million budget and some 1,240 research grants, how will you use your position of leadership to influence the general direction of the research portfolio? For example, do you anticipate the opportunity to encourage more multi-disciplinary teamwork in the environmental health sciences research enterprise? Dr. Birnbaum: Well, the answer to that last question is, absolutely. I think, again, when we're dealing with complex questions and complex diseases, we need to bring all the best minds we can to bear upon the question. And these kinds of complex problems require a multi-disciplinary approach, and teams of people getting together. My approach in science leadership is to empower my staff. I've got a lot of wonderful people who are working, both people working at the bench, and people who are working at the clinic in my intramural program, and I have wonderful guest scientists, program administrators, grant administrators, who are working in my extramural program to help stimulate and evaluate the best science that exists throughout our country. And I see my role, in many ways, as helping to provide the strategic leadership, the strategic direction, the strategic thinking which will empower these people to carry out their mission. Ernie Hood: This must be quite a change for you personally, even though you only physically moved just across the pond, literally, with the EPA facility just a few hundred yards away from NIEHSÉ Dr. Birnbaum: NIH has a very different culture from EPA, and although I had been at NIEHS 19 years ago, it has been a long time. Scientists at NIEHS, or at NIH in general, I think, are much freer to explore their ideas. They, very honestly, have more resources at their disposal to look into different things, and NIH is a very large and complicated institution, which is part of the whole federal Department of Health and Human Services. So we also have many partners, with the CDC, for example, and the FDA, and we work very closely with them as well. There are certain similarities with the part of the EPA with which I was affiliated because, again, we're both in North Carolina, which means that we're not in the maelstrom of Washington. I'm working very hard to make sure that the Office of the Director and the other institutes at the NIH don't forget us because we're not at the table. Ernie Hood: Last but not least, Dr. Birnbaum, I'm sure many people in our listening audience will be curious about your thoughts regarding Environmental Health Perspectives itself, and how you see the journal fitting into your vision of the future for the NIEHSÉ Dr. Birnbaum: I have always been a strong supporter of Environmental Health Perspectives. I think especially for the last ten or so years it has been the premier journal in environmental sciences, and one of the top two journals in public health. I think this is an amazing track record. EHP does something that no other journal does in the field, which is expand the science from the molecular to the whole animal to the epidemiology to clinical medicine, and it read not only extensively in our country and in English-speaking countries, but throughout the world. And I strongly support it and look forward to its continued development as a premier journal. Ernie Hood: Dr. Birnbaum, you're off to a great start at NIEHS, and we certainly thank you very much for taking the time to help us get The Researcher's Perspective off to a great start too! We'll look forward to the opportunity to welcome you again soonÉ Dr. Birnbaum: Totally my pleasure! We hope you have enjoyed this premier edition of The Researcher's Perspective, the Environmental Health Perspectives podcast. Thanks for listening, and we hope you will join us again next time!