Environmental and Occupational Toxicology and Disease Program

Our Vision: Protect the Most Vulnerable

While environmental quality has witnessed considerable improvements over the past decade, escalating climate change poses a threat to these advances. Moreover, exposure to environmental toxic agents and chemicals – both qualitative and quantitative – has a cumulative impact on human health during all stages of life. Importantly, such threats are not equitably distributed; low-income communities and communities of color in California, as well as firefighters, veterans and military personnel, are disproportionately exposed to and impacted by these risks.

The Environmental and Occupational Toxicology and Disease Program (EnvOTox) aims to map emerging environmental threats to human health, decipher how chemical mixtures in our surroundings harm vital organs, and formulate strategies to mitigate diseases resulting from environmental and occupational exposure.

EnvOTox has been selected as one of 12 high-impact research programs that will be located in the Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building.

In This New Facility

World-renowned scientists and clinicians together with new recruits will collaborate to apply state-of-the-art technology to investigate links between exposures and health impacts.

Interdisciplinary teams will work side-by-side to understand, prevent and mitigate environmental and occupational toxicology diseases.

Future leaders will be trained by the best in leading-edge environmental health science.

Indoor and outdoor gathering spaces for events, speakers and presentations will foster engagement and dialogue to speed and share discoveries.

Our Competitive Advantage

EnvOTox is empowered by the distinctive One Health approach of UC Irvine Health Affairs that transcends disciplinary boundaries and comprises faculty and staff from the Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences and UCI Health, our regional healthcare system. The college includes schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy & pharmaceutical sciences, and population & public health, as well as research centers and institutes including the pioneering Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute. By creating an interactive hub where experts work together instead of in insolation, we can catalyze groundbreaking innovation and discoveries in toxicology and biomedical research.

EnvOTox serves as a core research, education and public service laboratory for the University and the broader Orange County community. We will gather leading scientists from toxicology and biomedical research domains, supported by extramurally funded projects, equipment and passionate research teams, to investigate environmental and occupational health issues through a comprehensive toxicology perspective.

EnvOTox strives to be a regional leader, addressing local environmental justice issues while advancing biomedical research with innovative methods and approaches. Our research will focus on:

Effects of air pollution on brain, lung, heart and systemic health.
Interactions between toxic chemicals and cardiopulmonary diseases.
Environmental influences on reproductive and embryonic health.
The role of the gut microbiome in chronic illnesses, drug discovery and clinical interventions in toxico-pathological conditions.
The impact of inhaled environmental chemicals on accelerating neurodegenerative diseases.

Opportunities abound to uncover the toxicological implications of emerging and long-standing environmental threats, such as air pollution, insecticides, frequent and intensified wildfires and biological threats induced by climate change. With a multidisciplinary group of researchers, we will tackle these challenges jointly within the same physical space to discuss ideas, approaches and strategies while keeping human, animal and ecosystem health at the forefront.

EnvOTox continues to champion research that links chemical exposures with human health outcomes, providing the expertise that influences environmental policies and regulations. By uniting world-renowned scientists, fostering interdisciplinary collaborations and leveraging state-of-the-art facilities, we aim to drive groundbreaking innovations and protect the most vulnerable communities.

Current Team

We have assembled, and will seek to expand, an exceptional group of scientists dedicated to advancing research to safeguard those at greatest risk. Current faculty leadership includes:

Andrea De Vizcaya Ruiz, PhD

Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health; Center for Occupational & Environmental Health; Co-Director, Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory, Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health

Saurabh Chatterjee, MSc, PhD

Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health, Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health; Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Disease, School of Medicine

Masashi Kitazawa, PhD

Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health; Affiliated, Population Health & Disease Prevention, Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health

Michael Kleinman, MS, PhD

Adjunct Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health; Co-Director, Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory, Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health

Ulrike Luderer, MD, PhD, MPH

Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health; Director, Center for Occupational & Environmental Health; Affiliated, Population Health & Disease Prevention, Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health

Nicole Sparks, MS, PhD

Assistant Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health, Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health

Join Us in Making an Impact

We seek philanthropic partners to establish a home for the UC Irvine Environmental and Occupational Toxicology and Disease Program in the Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building, and to provide funding that will drive faculty recruitments and transformational discoveries.

Named Spaces Within the Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building

The overall design of the Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building allows UC Irvine to foster dynamic alliances that move discovery from inspiration to practice. There is the opportunity to name the new home for EnvOTox, as well as custom-designed laboratories for environmental analytics. As a philanthropic partner, you will ensure our scientists have the space, resources and facilities needed to perform their life-changing work.

Endowed Research Grants

Research endowments provide continuous support for our investigators who are reshaping the future of science and healthcare because external grants cover only a portion of costs. Moreover, endowed funding is particularly important to underwrite the most innovative discoveries and novel strategies because it provides the flexibility to follow the science that leads to breakthroughs. All this important work will be done under the name of our philanthropic partner. Named endowed scholarships underwrite the training of future generations of lead investigators and care providers in perpetuity.

Endowed Chairs

When you join us as a philanthropic partner naming an endowed chair, you will forever link your legacy to UC Irvine’s distinguished experts. Ultimately, advances in biomedical research will lead to innovative therapies. Philanthropic funds for endowed chairs, research and scholarships live in perpetuity. These funds create the ability to recruit and retain top-tier faculty who will be critical for UC Irvine to remain a world-class center of excellence for emerging therapies. Endowed chairs are so powerful because they establish a perpetual annual support stream for the chairholder to focus their efforts on aspirational research.