While important environmental health research was being done before the formation of the Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center, the establishment of our Center has spurred several new activities that augment and enhance our overall productivity in keeping with our goals and those of NIEHS. Core interactions have been at the heart of these developments. The Center has brought together the chemists, toxicologists, molecular biologists, epidemiologists and statisticians to work on environmental health. Center investigators are studying 6,000 children living in Southern California who breathe some of the most polluted air (ozone and particles) in the United States. The children have been followed to determine actual rates of loss of pulmonary function by exposure levels. The rate of lung growth is definitely affected by exposure to NO2, PM10 and acid vapor. (Gauderman et al., 2002). These results have important public health implications both for Southern California children and subjects in many other parts of the United States and the world. Another paper showing that children who exercise in high ozone areas are at greater risk of developing asthma also was published in 2002. (McConnell et al., 2002).

One of our Center’s “research initiatives” on asthma has led to a new Program Project supported by NIEHS. “Genetics, Air Pollution, and Respiratory Effects in Children” is the title of this grant, which provides funding for 5 years (2002-2007).

Many chemical components of hair dyes are bladder carcinogens in animals, and hairdressers (who are occupationally exposed to hair dyes) are known to experience increased bladder cancer risk. During the past year, Center investigators provided the first set of epidemiological data that convincingly link personal use of permanent hair dyes to bladder cancer development (Gago-Dominquez et al., 2001a, 2001b). We also showed that, contrary to our expectations, women have higher smoking related bladder cancer risk than men (i.e., for a given amount and duration of smoking, women have higher risk) and we confirmed this observation with biomarker data, showing that for a given amount of smoking women have higher levels of both 3- and 4- ABP hemoglobin adducts than men (Castelao et al., 2002).

Isothiocyanates (ITCs) are potent chemopreventive agents lung cancer in animals. Humans are exposed to ITCs primarily through intake of cruciferous vegetables. We previously had played key roles in the development and validation of a urinary biomarker of ITC for use in epidemiological studies (Chung et al., 1998; Seow et al., 1998). We then provided the first set of human data linking exposure to ITC with protection against lung cancer and showed that risk was substantially modified by GSTM1 genotype (London et al., 2000). In the last year, we extended our first observation in Chinese men in Shanghai to lung cancer in Chinese women of Singapore (Zhao et al., 2001).