CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI), NIH-National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIH-NIEHS) USA and ICAR-National Institute of Occupational Health (ICAR-NIOH) Ahmedabad are jointly organizing an Indo-US Workshop on ‘Emerging issues in Environmental Public Health: Dissecting Genetic and ExposomePerspectives’ on 3-5 January 2024 in the NEERI Auditorium, Nagpur.
The Chief Guest Dr. Rajiv Bahl, Secretary to Govt. of India, Department of Health and Director General, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) virtually inaugurated the workshop and addressed the participants. He appreciated the efforts made by CSIR-NEERI to achieve environmental sustainability. Health problems tied to global warming and climate change are on the rise, he alarmed. He stressed on developing strategies needed for adaptation and mitigation that will help the nation to cope with climate change. Collaborative research programmes and exchange of knowledge are need of the hour, he added. He advised scientists and policy makers to work together to address environment and health related issues. He urged the participants to consider ‘One Health’ approach for discussion in the workshop, which encompasses overall health of all living beings as well as that of the environment.
The Guest of Honour Dr. Satish R Wate, Former Director, CSIR-NEERI said that we need to set research priorities for dealing with environment and health. We need to focus on basic research to properly understand the co-relationship between environment and health. He emphasized on the need to strengthen environmental monitoring systems to get real-time data and revisit environmental technologies.
The Distinguished Guest Dr. Bhaskar Narayan, Director, CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (CSIR-IITR) mentioned that the exposome is a concept used to describe environmental exposures that an individual encounters throughout life, and how these exposures impact our health. We can evaluate environmental exposures and health risks by measuring the exposome, he said.
Dr Santasabuj Das, Director, ICMR-National Institute of Occupational Health (ICAR-NIOH) Ahmedabad in the inaugural session expressed concern over indoor air quality and related health impacts. He emphasized on the need to study the connection between genes and the environment.
Dr. Srikanth Nadadur, NIH-NIEHS USA briefed about the partnership between India and USA to advance air pollution research, and foster exchange of expertise and scientific collaborations regarding health effects of air pollution.
Dr. Richard Woychik, Director, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and National Toxicology Program, NIH USA delivering a key-note lecture on ‘Planning Future Directions for Environmental Health Sciences’ briefed about the next generation strategic plan for advancing environmental health sciences. He addressed the six emerging scientific priority areas as future directions for environmental health science, including: the exposome, climate change and health, precision environmental health, mechanistic and translational biology, environmental justice and health disparities, and computational biology and data science. Dr.Woychik pointed out that precision environmental health will help to identify individual gene and environment effects, and risks associated with health. Elaborating on the U.S. and India partnerships, he informed that it will be possible to identify especially vulnerable populations with highest risk disease and study epigenetic changes as a consequence of air pollution.
Dr. Atul Vaidya, Director, CSIR-NEERI in his welcome address urged the scientists to develop new tools for advancing human health risk assessment. More research is needed to improve the understanding of how the environment affects people’s health, he added.
Dr. K. Krishnamurthi, Chief Scientist and Head, Health and Toxicity Cell (HTC), CSIR-NEERI gave an overview of the workshop. Dr. U. Mabalirajan, CSIR-IICB Kolkata proposed the vote of thanks. Dr. Amit Bafana, Principal Scientist, CSIR-NEERI conducted the proceedings.
Spread over three days, the workshop has been divided into seven technical sessions, including environmental health effects assessments, susceptibility issues in environmental and occupational health, air pollution health effects, emerging contaminants, environmental pollution and health assessment.