Zhanghua Chen, PhD
Assistant Professor of Population and Health Sciences
University of Southern California
She / Her / Hers
Air pollution exposure has been increasingly recognized as the leading environmental risk factor for morbidity and mortality. Short-term and long-term air pollution exposure has been associated with increased risk of many adverse health outcomes such as low birth weight, perturbed fetal and infant growth, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, neurological disorders. However, the pathophysiological mechanisms of air pollution exposure in human are unclear. Emerging evidence from metabolomics studies suggested that air pollution exposure altered key metabolic pathways of amino acids, fatty acids and lipids that could play an important role in disease etiology. Our metabolomics studies in children and adults also found that dysregulated metabolic pathways induced by short-term and long-term air pollution exposure were associated with increased risk of various adverse outcomes including metabolic dysfunction, asthma exacerbation and autism. Future research is needed to prove the causal effect of air pollution exposure and find the molecular targets for interventions and disease prevention.
About the Speaker: Dr. Zhanghua Chen is an environmental epidemiologist and biostatistician with multidisciplinary expertise in environmental health, biostatistics, epidemiology, clinical medicine, obesity and diabetes pathophysiology, genomics, metabolomics, and data science. Her research interests include adverse health effects of environmental pollution exposures (air pollution and POPs), methods of multi-omics, environmental impact on COVID-19, and air pollution intervention studies. She has been the principal investigator and co-investigator on several NIEHS-supported R01 and K99/R00 projects. Her research papers have been published in many well-received medical journals such as Diabetes Care and American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Dr Chen is also the co-Chair of the admission committee of USC PPHS Epidemiology PhD program.
Thursday, February 23, 2023, 12:00-1:15 pm Eastern
Field Auditorium Room 1112, Grainger Hall (9 Circuit Dr, Durham, NC)
Masks are optional for in-person attendees. Please stay home if you aren’t feeling well and join us via livestream instead (see below).