Varshavsky Lab
The Varshavsky Lab studies how environmental chemical exposures impact human health across the life course and how these insights can lead to interventions that will protect susceptible and highly exposed populations.
About
With a principal focus on endocrine disrupting chemicals and maternal-child health outcomes in susceptible and highly exposed populations, our lab broadly seeks to understand the impact of multiple environmental stressors, including chemical exposures, air pollution, and non-chemical stressors, on human health across the life course and how to mitigate their adverse effects. Our research agenda also includes conducting high-quality systematic reviews, advancing risk assessment science and policy, performing community-engaged research, and bridging the gap between health and sustainability. We are passionate about translational research that follows a cell-to-street paradigm and are versatile in many different analytic techniques that make this paradigm come alive (i.e., exposure assessment, toxicology, environmental epidemiology, and risk assessment). Our work collectively aims to identify exposure sources, how they relate to environmental toxicants in the body, and how environmental toxicants in the body contribute to biological perturbations and downstream clinical and subclinical health outcomes. We also study how to use each of these data streams to identify modifiable environmental exposures and advance chemical risk assessment and multiple levels of decision-making (e.g., individual, community, and policy levels).
Team
Led by SSEHRI Core Faculty Assistant Prof. Julia Varshavsky, Public Health and Health Sciences and Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University
- Lauren Ellis, Graduate Student, Population Health PhD, Northeastern University
- Julia Logan, Graduate Student, Population Health PhD, Northeastern University
- Kiarash Farzan, Graduate Student, Civil and Environmental Engineering PhD, Northeastern University
- Saadat Shahidi, Graduate Student, Interdisciplinary Engineering PhD, Northeastern University (co-advised by Yang Zhang)
- Emma Walter, Graduate Student, Civil and Environmental Engineering PhD, Northeastern University (co-advised by Matt Eckelman)
- Devin Kantu, Undergrad, Health Equity Internship Program, Northeastern University
- Mako Niwa, Undergrad, Health Equity Internship Program, Northeastern University
- Nasir Stanley, Undergrad, Health Equity Internship Program, Northeastern University
- Amelia Fargnoli, Undergrad, Health Equity Internship Program, Northeastern University
Past Members
- Nicolette Peerman, Graduate Student, Master of Science in Civil Engineering, Northeastern University
- Natalie Rappaport, Undergrad, Health Equity Internship Program, Northeastern University
- Matthew Liu, Undergrad, Health Equity Internship Program, Northeastern University
- Sabrina Balmaseda, Undergrad Co-op and ROUTES Scholar, Northeastern University
- Ainsley Dorisier, Undergrad Co-op, Northeastern University
- Grace Nyberg, Undergrad, Northeastern University
- Iris Chang, Undergrad, Health Equity Internship Program, Northeastern University
- Brooklyn Brovold, Undergrad, Northeastern University
- Kennedy Thompson, Undergrad, Northeastern University
- Mia Weisman, Undergrad, Northeastern University
- Kaitlyn Hollister, Undergrad, Northeastern University
- Diane Grant, Undergrad, Northeastern University Ecom Lu, Undergrad, Health Equity Internship Program, Northeastern University
- Zoe Ronkin, Undergrad, Northeastern University
Current Projects and Affiliated Organizations
The BRIGHT Study – Breastmilk Research on Infant Growth and Hazardous Toxicants
Our lab is launching the BRIGHT study in which we aim to: collect breastmilk samples from new mothers in the greater Boston area and Puerto Rico; analyze breastmilk samples for a combination of legacy and replacement PFAS and immune and nutritional biomarkers; report back chemical exposure results to study participants; evaluate nuanced messaging on breastfeeding and potential community-level actions related to PFAS levels from the report-back; and investigate associations between exposure and infant growth and developmental outcomes, starting with early infant neurofunction.
Environmental Chemical Exposures and Maternal and Child Outcomes in Multiple Human Populations
We are working on several epidemiologic investigations of environmental chemical mixtures and reproductive and developmental outcomes, including pregnancy complications and adverse maternal and child health outcomes, using data from the Puerto Rico PROTECT study, Environmental Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) cohort, Biomonitoring California, and the California Genetic Disease Screening program.
We are also conducting an exposure assessment of PFAS water levels from Puerto Rico in relation to national MCLs and proximity to known and suspected PFAS sources, and are assessing determinants, including both community- and policy-level determinants, of PFAS exposure, using ECHO-wide data.
PFAS-Tox Database and Decision-Making
We are working with interdisciplinary collaborators in the environmental health field to leverage a systematic evidence map of over 1,000 human, animal, and in vitro studies to conduct multiple systematic reviews, including one assessing the effect of PFAS exposure on gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and its subclinical risk factors and another to determine if epidemiological and experimental animal studies with a financial conflict of interest (COI) related to PFAS production and use report industry-favorable results more frequently than studies without a financial COI.
iSUPER and Air Pollution Decision-Making
We are working with a large interdisciplinary and translational collaborative team as part of the Intelligent Solutions to Urban Pollution for Equity and Resilience (iSUPER) project to refine hyperlocal air pollution measurements and use the data to inform intervention opportunities and individual- and community-level decision-making among impacted communities in the Greater Boston area.
Endomentriosis and Environmental Exposures: A Qualitative Study of Patient and Clinician Perspectives (ENDEX Study)
Members of our group are working on the ENDEX study to better understand perceptions about the causes of endometriosis, a painful disease affecting over 10% of women in which tissue similar to uterine tissue grows outside of the uterus. We are conducting interviews on perceptions of the role of environmental exposures, including endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDC), in endometriosis among clinicians and patients. By collecting qualitative data on these perspectives, this research will help to inform clinical guidance on EDC exposures and help patients to understand how their own exposures may contribute to an increased risk of disease and/or increased severity of existing disease.
Collaborative for Health and Environment
Dr. Varshavsky also serves on the advisory team for the Collaborative for Health and Environment (CHE), a leading environmental health organization that amplifies the latest scientific evidence on the impact of environmental contaminants to human health.
PFAS Project Lab
Dr. Varshavsky and several lab members are also members of the PFAS Project Lab, another part of SSEHRI.