Environmental Biomarkers Core

Richard D. Minshall, PhD, is Professor of Pharmacology and Anesthesiology in the College of Medicine at UIC, with a research focus on pulmonary disease and molecular mechanisms of lung injury. Dr. Minshall currently serves as Co-Leader of the CACHET Biomarkers Core, implementing services within the RRC Mass Spectrometry Core (RRC-MSC). At UIC, he previously served as Director of the RRC and as Associate Director of Shared Resources for the University of Illinois Cancer Center. He is the current Co-Director of Team Science for the UIC Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences. His efforts have been instrumental in reorganizing and rejuvenating core service facilities critical to basic, translational and clinical research activities at UIC. As the RRC Director, he was instrumental in upgrading the RRC-MSC as well as other core facilities for NMR, flow cytometry, imaging, genomics, gene editing, single cell proteomics, transcriptomic profiling, biobanking and bioinformatics, which are all important for CACHET investigators. In addition to serving the UIC research community, Dr. Minshall plays a central role in the Chicago Biomedical Consortium (CBC), a collaborative agreement between UIC, UofC and Northwestern University that provides access for all investigators to shared resources at each institution at internal rates. As a UIC leader and representative to the CBC open access executive advisory panel that directs acquisition of new shared instrumentation not otherwise available in Chicago, he has enabled development of quantitative assays for analysis of a wide variety of biomarkers such as isoprostanes, DNA oxidation products and sulfatides in clinical specimens, and environmental pollutants, e.g BPA, heavy metals. Dr. Minshall’s primary role as EBC Co-Leader is to provide direction, advice and “lead blocking” that enables CACHET members to access relevant key Facility Cores at UIC and UofC and to help coordinate access and P30-subsidized copay mechanisms that reduce costs to PIs for facility/service fees while providing high-quality prioritized access to critical instrumentation and expertise.

Eric G. Pamer, MD, is Director of the DFI and Microbiome Center and Professor of Medicine and Microbiology at UofC. He is a renowned physician–scientist who specializes in immune defense against infections associated with cancer treatment, with a research focus on the microbiome’s impact on infection resistance. Dr. Pamer was previously the Chief of Infectious Disease at Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC, Director of the Lucille Castori Center for Microbes, Inflammation and Cancer and Professor at Weil Cornell Medical University. He is a member of the NIH-NIAID Board of Scientific Counselors and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health Scientific Advisory Committee. His multidisciplinary expertise encompasses microbial genomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics in relation to health and immunity. At DFI, Dr. Pamer’s research team promotes wellness through groundbreaking science on the immune system, genetics, the microbiome and their shared environments. UofC has provided significant research resources and infra-structure support (e.g. physical infrastructure, major instrumentation, multiple faculty recruitment slots), which benefit the newly streamlined EBC to support CACHET’s mission. Dr. Pamer’s role as Co-Leader of the EBC entails providing direction, oversight and operational guidance to core services pertaining to analyses of micro-biome, microbial metabolites and other -omics-related assays, enabling CACHET members at UofC and UIC to timely and seamless access while ensuring quality and prioritization to meet evolving CACHET needs.