David Christiani is the Elkan Blout Professor of environmental genetics at the Departments of Environmental Health and Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Professor Christiani’s research interest lies in the interaction between human genes and the environment. In the field of molecular epidemiology, he studies the impact of human exposure to toxicants on health, as well as how genetic susceptibility to these diseases along with environmental exposures can lead to acute and chronic disease. Internationally, Dr. Christiani and his wide network of collaborators are studying the health effects of various environmental toxicants in China, Taiwan, and Bangladesh. With his colleagues, he has developed biologic markers useful for examining pollutant-induced diseases such as lung cancer, bladder cancer, skin cancer, acute lung injury, and upper-respiratory-tract inflammation. He is examining the role of genetic susceptibility in lung cancer and acute lung injury, as well as biomarkers predictive of outcome and survival for these disorders. Currently, he is conducting Genome-Wide Association Studies for these diseases. Christiani has led a landmark 30-year-long study of respiratory disease in cotton-textile workers in Shanghai, China. This study has determined the rate of loss in lung function among dust-exposed workers and uses molecular biology tools to evaluate the relationship between exposure to endotoxin produced by bacteria in cotton and acute and chronic lung disease. An author or coauthor of over 400 papers, Dr. Christiani is an Associate Editor for the Journals Cancer Research and Carcinogenesis, a Contributing Editor to Environmental Health Perspectives, the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, and an International Contributing Editor to the Chinese Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and the Chinese Medical Journal (English edition).
Biography Updated on 13 December 2009