Science in the Triangle

Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences have long wanted to test some low-cost methods they thought could help prevent or treat chronic diseases, such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and cancer.

The institute, which employs about 1,500 in Research Triangle Park, focuses on environmental factors such as tobacco, pollution and allergens on health. NIEHS researchers have studied these factors with the help of mice, cell cultures and visits to the field, like people’s homes.

Now, a small clinic where doctors and nurses can take blood and tissue samples or test the lung function of healthy and sick people will allow hundreds of NIEHS researchers and scientific collaborators at area universities to go one step further: test whether interventions work.

The grand opening of the 14,000-square-foot clinical research unit earlier this week drew the Triangle’s three Congressional members and U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, all Democrats, to NIEHS’ campus. Joe Graedon of National Public Radio’s “The People’s Pharmacy” served as master of ceremony. Dr. Robert Califf, the head of Duke University’s Clinical Research Institute and a former candidate for the Food and Drug Administration’s top spot, spoke.

“It’s pretty significant,” NIEHS spokeswoman Robin Mackar said about the clinic’s opening. “This stuff could eventually be useful. We’re big on prevention.”

Reducing costs is the main objective of the health care reform the Obama Administration is proposing. But accomplishing it is a difficult task and the bill pending in Congress is controversial. President Obama’s Raleigh visit Tuesday to address health care reform was closely watched by the media and the public nationwide.

The NIEHS event a day earlier went largely unnoticed.

The health care reform debate rages mostly about who will pay physicians and hospitals and the role medicines play, said Dr. Darryl Zeldin, the NIEHS’ acting clinical director. “Not enough attention is paid to how to improve the health of our nation.”

Changes in lifestyle and exposure to environmental disease triggers could prove very cost-effective, Zeldin said.

David Price, a Democrat who represents the western part of the Triangle in Congress, picked up on that thought at the clinic’s grand opening.

“Our presence here today bears witness to the pride North Carolina takes, not only in the presence of NIEHS, but in the life-saving and live-enhancing research you do, now more important than ever, as our country takes on – in some cases belatedly – the environmental energy, and public health challenges that are likely to define the 21st century,” Price said, according to his Web site.

The $187 million in research funding the NIEHS has received from the stimulus package is another measure of how important the environment and health are in the Obama Administration.

The NIEHS is one of 19 research institutes of the federally-funded National Institutes of Health and the only one located outside the Washington, D.C., area.

One of the first studies made possible by the clinic will involve children whose asthma acts up when they are exposed to roaches, Zeldin said.

Rather than just use medicines to treat symptoms, NIEHS researchers will study whether removing the roaches is effective in controlling the children’s asthma.

Many of the tests required to see whether the intervention works were impossible or difficult without the clinic, Zeldin said.

If it works, he said, he hopes the satudy results will find their way into guidelines that doctors follow to treat asthma.

The clinic will also create 20 to 25 news jobs in RTP over the next two years. The NIEHS will be looking for nurses, lab technicians and phlebotomists.