Justin Colacino, PhD, MA, MPH
Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Health Sciences; Department of Nutritional Sciences; Program in the Environment
University of Michigan
Description: There are profound disparities in the rates of chronic diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease by race/ethnicity in the US. This presentation will show how the environment may drive these disparities, highlighting integrated results from epidemiological analyses and toxicological experiments which show how common chemicals with unequal exposures in our population promote hallmarks of these deadly diseases.
About the speaker: Dr. Justin Colacino is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, Nutritional Sciences, and the Environment at the University of Michigan. His group’s research focuses on understanding environmental and dietary factors in the development of chronic diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Specifically, the goal of his research is to characterize the susceptibility of normal stem cell populations to environmental stress, to understand the link between dysregulated development and disease. Of particular interest are understanding the changes that occur at the epigenetic and transcriptional level, changes which affect not only gene expression but also how progenitor cells differentiate and divide. His research group combines wet lab bench work and bioinformatic and statistical analysis of large scale genomic and epidemiologic data sets to translate findings from in vitro and in vivo models to the population level.
Thursday, January 22, 2026
Field Auditorium, Room 1112, Grainger Hall (9 Circuit Drive, Durham, NC)
This seminar will also be presented live via Panopto. Click HERE for the livestream.