BBB Collaborative Research: Environmental Exposures and Health

With growing technology and industrialization, humans are constantly exposed to various environmental toxicants through air, water, food chain, and various other sources. Understanding the impact of these exposures on human health is a challenging problem.

BBB staff are actively involved in numerous collaborations with researchers who are interested in the effects of chemicals at various stages of human life. For example, BBB collaborates with:

BBB investigators have been actively collaborating with investigators from the Epidemiology Branch as well as academic institutions in studies focused on environmental influences on human fecundity and fertility. In particular, branch researchers have been actively involved in assessing associations of environmental exposures including endocrine-disrupting chemicals in relation to a spectrum of reproductive outcomes in both men and women.

Additionally, BBB researchers are also focused on studying the application of the exposome research paradigm for understanding environmental influences on human fecundity and fertility impairments. Current interest also includes extending the classical epidemiological approaches for assessing individual chemical toxicants to mixtures of chemicals in relation to various reproductive outcomes as well as other perinatal outcomes.

Principal Investigators

Zhen Chen, Ph.D., and Rajeshwari Sundaram, M.Stat., Ph.D.

Selected Publications

Iszatt, N., Janssen, S., Lenters, V., Dahl, C., Stigum, H., Knight, R., Mandal, S., ... Peddada, S. D., & Eggesbø, M. (2019). Environmental toxicants in breast milk of Norwegian mothers and gut bacteria composition and metabolites in their infants at 1 month. Microbiome, 7(1), 34. PMID: 30813950. PMCID: PMC6393990

Buck, L. G. M., Yeung, E., Kannan, K., Maisog, J., Zhang, C., Grantz, K. L., & Sundaram, R. (2019). Patterns and variability of endocrine-disrupting chemicals during pregnancy: implications for understanding the exposome of normal pregnancy. Epidemiology, 30(Suppl 2), S65-S75. PMID: 31569155. PMCID: PMC6777854

Hwang, B. S., Chen, Z. M., Buck, L. G. M., & Albert, P. S. (2019). A Bayesian multi-dimensional couple-based latent risk model with an application to infertility. Biometrics, 75(1), 315-325. PMID: 30267541

Zhang, W., Chen, Z., Liu, A., & Buck, L. G. M. (2019). A weighted kernel machine regression approach to environmental pollutants and infertility. Statistics in Medicine, 38(5), 809-827. PMID: 30328128

Ouidir, M., Louis, G. M. B., Kanner, J., Grantz, K. L., Zhang, C., Sundaram, R., Rahman, M., Kurunthachalam, K., Tekola-Ayela, F., & Mendola, P. (2019). Endocrine disruptors exposure during pregnancy and longitudinal fetal growth in the NICHD Fetal Growth Studies: singletons. JAMA Pediatrics, 174(2), 149-161.

Yamashita, H., Hoenerhoff, M. J., Shockley, K. R., Peddada, S. D., Gerrish, K. E., Sutton, D., Cummings, C. A., ... Pandiri, A. R. (2018). Reduced disc shedding and phagocytosis of photoreceptor outer segment contributes to kava kava extract-induced retinal degeneration in F344/N rats. Toxicologic Pathology, 46(5), 564-573. PMID: 29806545. PMCID: PMC6027611

Lum, K. J., Sundaram, R., Barr, D. B., Louis, T. A., & Buck, L. G. M. (2017). Perfluoroalkyl chemicals, menstrual cycle length, and fecundity: findings from a prospective pregnancy study. Epidemiology, 28(1), 90-98. PMID: 27541842. PMCID: PMC5131715

Smarr, M. M., Buck, L. G. M., Sundaram, R., Honda, M., Kannan, K., Honda, M., & Kannan, K. (2017). Urinary concentrations of parabens and other antimicrobial chemicals and their association with couples’ fecundity. Environmental Health Perspectives, 125(4), 730-736. PMID: 27286252. PMCID: PMC5381974.

Reese, S. E., Zhao, S., Wu, M. C., Joubert, B. R., Parr, C. L., Håberg, S. E., Ueland, P. M., Nilsen, R. M., Midttun, O., Vollset, S. E., Peddada, S. D., Nystad, W., & London, S. J. (2017). DNA methylation score as a biomarker in newborns for sustained maternal smoking during pregnancy. Environmental Health Perspectives, 125(4), 760-766. PMID: 27323799

Joubert, B. R., den, D. H. T., Felix, J. F., Bohlin, J., Ligthart, S., Beckett, E., Tiemeier, H., ... London, S. J. (2016). Maternal plasma folate impacts differential DNA methylation in an epigenome-wide meta-analysis of newborns. Nature Communications, 7(1), 10577. PMID: 26861414. PMCID: PMC4749955

Buck, L. G. M., Barr, D. B., Kannan, K., Chen, Z., Kim, S., & Sundaram, R. (2016). Paternal exposures to environmental chemicals and time-to-pregnancy: overview of results from the LIFE study. Andrology, 4(4), 639-647. PMID: 27061873. PMCID: PMC4961554

Buck, L. G. M., Kannan, K., Sapra, K. J., Maisog, J., & Sundaram, R. (2014). Urinary concentrations of benzophenone-type ultraviolet radiation filters and couples' fecundity. American Journal of Epidemiology, 180(12), 1168-1175. PMID: 25395025. PMCID: PMC4262441

Engel, S. M., Joubert, B. R., Wu, M. C., Olshan, A. F., Haberg, S. E., Ueland, P. M., Nystad, W., Nilsen, R. M., Vollset, S. E., Peddada, S. D., & London, S. J. (2014). Neonatal genome-wide methylation patterns in relation to birth weight in the Norwegian mother and child cohort. American Journal of Epidemiology, 179(7), 834-842. PMID: 24561991. PMCID: PMC3969535

Buck, L. G. M., Yeung, E., Sundaram, R., Laughon, S. K., & Zhang, C. (2013). The exposome - exciting opportunities for discoveries in reproductive and perinatal epidemiology: exposome and reproductive and perinatal epidemiology. Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, 27(3), 229-236. PMID: 23574410. PMCID: PMC3625972.

Louis, G. M. B., Sundaram, R., Schisterman, E. F., Sweeney, A. M., Lynch, C. D., Gore-Langton, R. E., Maisog, J., ... Barr, D. B. (2013). Persistent environmental pollutants and couple fecundity: The LIFE Study. Environmental Health Perspectives, 121(2), 231-236. PMID: 23151773. PMCID: PMC3569685

Buck, L. G. M., & Sundaram, R. (2012). Exposome: time for transformative research. Statistics in Medicine, 31(22), 2569-2575. PMID: 22969025. PMCID: PMC3842164

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