The Great Lakes WATER Institute
The Wisconsin Aquatic Technology and Environmental
Research (WATER) Institute, administered by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,
is the premier academic organization studying the Great Lakes. It serves as
an umbrella for a number of groups that focus their attention on different aspects
of freshwater research. Among them is the NIEHS Marine and Freshwater Biomedical
Sciences (MFBS) Center. The WATER Institute’s new strategic plan recognizes
the inextricable linkage between the health of the Great Lakes basin environment
and the environmental health of its human inhabitants and proposes an ambitious
plan of research to address issues related to Great Lakes and human health.
The MFBS Center plays a central role in anchoring research on factors within
the Great Lakes environment that contribute to human disease.
The WATER Institute hosts the MFBS Center’s research support cores. Included
are an aquatic animal facility, a neurobehavioral toxicology laboratory, and
a molecular biology and microscopic imaging laboratory. Together, they provide
members with state-of-the-art research infrastructure and expert staff for conducting
experiments. Other WATER Institute research facilities provide additional support
for Center scientists.
UW-Milwaukee Institute of Environmental Health (IEH)
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Institute of
Environmental Health (IEH) is the University partner of the MFBS Center. It
provides pilot project support for Center investigators and leadership in community
outreach and education. In addition, the IEH has served as the administrative
site for locating new positions in zebrafish biology, which were allocated by
the University in support of the Center’s initiative to develop the zebrafish
as a prime model in developmental toxicology.
Children’s Research Institute (CRI) of Children’s Hospital and Health System
The CRI is the research arm of Children’s Hospital and Health
System and is affiliated with the Medical College of Wisconsin. The mission
of the CRI advances state-of-the-art pediatric health care practice through
dedicated laboratory and clinical research. The CRI focuses solely on initiatives
that promise to provide new answers and improved solutions to children's unmet
health care needs.
In 2005, the MFBS Center and the CRI agreed to develop an
inter-institutional partnership for research and community outreach and education
related to children’s environmental health. The partnership merged the Center’s
strengths in basic environmental health research with the research focus of
the CRI on children’s diseases to forge the Children’s Environmental Health
Institute (CEHI, dedicated to understanding the gene-environment interactions
that underlie common childhood diseases. Currently, the CEHI has funded several
pilot projects that bring together basic and clinical scientists from the two
organizations to address important question related to children’s environmental
health.
