Environmental and Occupational Toxicology and Disease Program

Founding Director: Andrea De Vizcaya Ruiz, PhD

Our Vision: Protect the Most Vulnerable

While environmental quality has witnessed considerable improvements over the past decade, current and future escalating climate changes poses a threat to these advancements. Moreover, changes in exposure to environmental toxic agents and chemicals – qualitative and quantitative – are expected to have 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 veterans and military personnel, are disproportionately exposed 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, clinicians and 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 biomedical science.

Indoor and outdoor gathering spaces for events, speakers and presentations will further discussion and share new scientific insights.

Our Competitive Advantage

EnvOTox is empowered by the distinctive One Health approach of UCI Health Affairs that transcends disciplinary boundaries and comprises faculty and staff from the Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences (encompassing schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences, population and public health) and UCI Health, our regional healthcare system which includes 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 will serve the UCI community, the Program in Public Health, and the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health as a core research, education and public service laboratory. We will gather six 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. Leveraging our understanding of toxicology and human diseases, EnvOTox research will focus on the effects of air pollution on lung, heart and systemic health, interactions between toxic chemicals and cardiopulmonary diseases, environmental influences on reproductive and embryonic health, and the role of gut microbiome in chronic illnesses, among other research lines.

Opportunities abound to uncover the toxicological implications of emerging and long-standing environmental threats, such as air pollution, insecticides, PFAS, frequent and intensified wildfires due to climate change, and biological threats (heat stress, HABs) 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.

Current Team

This program unites faculty members from the Genomics Research and Technologies Hub and the Pathology Collaboratory from the School of Medicine, enabling the IPH Precision Omics unit to translate omic discoveries into point-of-care and FDA-approved laboratory-developed tests.

Andrea De Vizcaya Ruiz, PhD

Associate Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health; Center for Occupational & Environmental Health; Co-Director, Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory

Saurabh Chatterjee, MSc, PhD

Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health; Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Disease, School of Medicine

Masashi Kitazawa, PhD

Associate Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health; Affiliated, Population Health & Disease Prevention

Michael Kleinman, MS, PhD

Adjunct Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health; Co-Director, Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory

Ulrike Luderer, MD, PhD, MPH

Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health; Director, Center for Occupational & Environmental Health; Affiliated, Population Health & Disease Prevention

Nicole Sparks, MS, PhD

Assistant Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health

Join Us in Making an Impact

We seek philanthropic partners to establish a home for the UCI Environmental and Occupational Toxicology and Disease Program in the Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building, and to support our programmatic funding to achieve transformational discoveries.

Named Spaces Within the Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building

The overall design of the Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building allows UCI 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 and gathering spaces. 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 UCI’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 UCI 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.

Partner With Us

Please join us as we make our vision for EnvOTox a reality. To learn more about exclusive naming opportunities for this transformative initiative and for associated spaces within the medical innovation building, please contact:

Caroline Pereira, MBA
Associate Vice Chancellor of Health Advancement
caroline.pereira@uci.edu | 949-824-5577