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| The Department of Environmental Health Sciences traces its origin to the founding of the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. It was one of the original departments. At that time, the Department of Physiological Hygiene was responsible for research and teaching on the broad topic of physiology as a scientific basis for understanding issues of public health. The chairman of the Department was Dr. William Howell who, by the quality of his scientific endeavor, left a permanent mark and traditions in the department.
In the early 1920s, Anna Baetjer joined the Department as a graduate student and earned the Doctor of Science degree. In 1924, she became a faculty member, a position she held for 60 years until her death.
Dr. Baetjer's early research was on the effects of environmental climatic conditions of altitude and temperature on physiologic variables (American Journal of Hygiene, 4:650-673, 1924 and American Journal of Hygiene, 7:481-504, 1927). She later turned her attention to occupational cancer and, still later, to host defense mechanisms. During the severe economic constraints of the 1930s, the department was virtually disbanded except for Dr. Baetjer, who retained her position as chairwoman and sole faculty member.
In the 1950s, the department was reorganized as the department of Environmental Medicine under Dr. Joseph Lilienthal. His death brought Dr. Richard Riley to the chairmanship in 1960, a position he held until his retirement in 1976. Under Dr. Riley's directorship the department entered a period of rapid growth of research in pulmonary and cardiac physiology with the development of a strong training program and a Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) grant under the direction of Dr. Harold Menkes.
The nation's first toxicology training program supported by the NIH was designed in 1964 by Dr. Anna Baetjer and Dr. Riley, who recruited Dr. Robert Rubin as its first director. This program has continued to grow and flourish since that time.
A second line of ancestry for the current Department of Environmental Health Sciences extends back to 1936 when Dr. Abel Wolman, who had been regularly lecturing at the School in sanitary engineering from his post with the Baltimore City Health Department, was invited to found a Department of Sanitary Engineering. Dr. Wolman rapidly achieved international renown for his efforts to develop and implement engineering systems to assure clean water supplies for urban and rural communities.
These systems involved the identification and organization of natural water supply systems, their storage and transport to nearby settings in communities, the systematic processing for cleansing of natural and man-made impurities by means of filtration, precipitation, and disinfection by chemical treatment with oxidizing agents such as chlorine. Dr. Wolman headed this effort until he transferred to the School of Engineering on the Homewood campus in the mid-1950s.
Dr. Cornelius Kruse was subsequently recruited to head the department. The department's name was changed to Environmental Health in recognition of the expanding issues relating to air pollution, water quality, solid and hazardous wastes, and toxic substances. This department continued as a small but excellent teaching-oriented group, comprising Drs. Kruse, Kawata, Swift, and Olivieri until the mid-1970s when its organizational framework changed to achieve better integration with the biological components of environmental health.
The third line of ancestry for the Department of Environmental Health Sciences dates back to the late 1950s with the establishment of the Department of Radiological Sciences under the direction of Dr. Russell Morgan. This department, which represented programs in the School of Medicine as well as the School of Hygiene and Public Health, was focused on the health issues associated with radiation, particularly radiation in medical services. Dr. Morgan was instrumental in building the north wing of the School and in the recruitment of a highly competent, multidisciplinary faculty.
In the early 1970s, Dr. Morgan left to become Dean of the School of Medicine, and the department was segmented. Groups moved to several departments in the School of Hygiene and Public Health, including the Department of Biochemistry and the newly designated Department of Environmental Health Sciences.
In the mid-1970s, when Dr. Riley was preparing for retirement, a committee was named by Dean Hume and chaired by Dr. Abraham Lilienfeld that was charged with the responsibility of reviewing the broad area of environmental health and the sections of the School where faculty worked on areas relevant to environmental health. Drawing from a white paper written by Dr. Kruse in the late 1950s urging unification of the engineering and human health aspects of environmental health, and reviewing the current organizational setting in the School, the committee recommended the unification of the Department of Environmental Medicine, containing physiology and toxicology, the Department of Environmental Health, containing the engineering components, and portions of the former Department of Radiological Sciences, notably the Division of Radiation Health. A search committee was established and Dr. Gareth Green was recruited as the first chairman of this department in 1976.
During the first year of his tenure, Dr. Green held a departmental retreat to review the organization of the department in an effort to rationalize and coordinate the diversity of disciplines and interests represented within this new department. He decided that a divisional structure should be developed consisting of the Divisions of Environmental Physiology, Environmental Toxicology, Radiation Health Sciences, Environmental Health Engineering, and Occupational Medicine. The Division of Occupational Medicine was deemed important because of the applications of environmental health sciences to human populations in the workplace and because of the recent establishment of an Educational Resource Center in Occupational Safety and Health funded by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Directors of these divisions were recruited either from existing faculty in the School or from outside.
In the subsequent ten years, all divisions except Radiation Health Sciences have changed leadership. An additional division was added in September 1978 in the area of Environmental Chemistry, directed by Dr. Shih-Yi Wang. The Division of Environmental Toxicology was reorganized into the Division of Experimental Pathology and Toxicology, and a program in Environmental Neurobiology.
Also, over this 10-year period, a number of specialized units for specific purposes in research and education were formulated as centers in the department. These include the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH), the NIOSH-funded Educational Resource Center in Occupational Safety and Health (ERC), the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT), the Center for Advancement of Radiation Education and Research (CARER), the Research Training Center in Environmental Health Sciences (RTCEHS), and the Environmental Health Sciences Center (EHSC). The rationale for forming such centers is for specific targeted purposes that do not fit a divisional mission, have a dedicated source of funding, and require separate administrative support.
At a departmental retreat in the spring of 1984, a three-part strategy was devised to mobilize new department-based resources to meet the goals of the Department. A stable, integrated research environment with ongoing core support for equipment and established core investigators was acquired through the award of an Environmental Health Sciences Research Center supported by the Center Grant Program of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The award, made in September of 1985, was at that time one of only 11 in the United States.
Designation of a national Environmental Health Sciences Research Center recognized the existing scientific strengths in environmental health at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, and the promise of its continuing contributions to the national scientific effort in environmental health in the United States.
The second part of the three-pronged strategy was to establish stable support for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary education and training in the basic and applied professional sciences in environmental health. Support for basic training in scientific research was obtained through the award of a research training grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Multidisciplinary specialty education in the environmental health professions of occupational medicine and nursing and industrial hygiene and safety has been supported since 1978 by an Educational Resource Center program provided from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. This program links the basic disciplines of toxicology and environmental engineering to the field problems of occupational exposure and disease in the workplace. This program also supports the active training of clinicians under the Occupational Medicine Residency program.
To educate practicing professionals in the broad interdisciplinary environmental issues of risk analysis, assessment, and management in relationship to national policy questions of importance to government, industry, and the general public in environmental health, the Department developed an innovative interdisciplinary professional education program supported by a substantial grant from the Kellogg Foundation. The new curriculum with applied field and research experiences has led to the development of a new breed of multidisciplinary senior-level professional in environmental health.
The third and key segment of this strategy was addressed by a grant from the Mellon Foundation to provide the intellectual climate and creativity for these programs, and for the broader questions of science in environmental health through provision of support for recruitment of faculty into the department. The objective of this multidisciplinary recruitment was to strengthen the departmental and institutional resources in the full range of disciplines covering exposures, dose, and response based on a sound understanding of basic biology and mechanisms of the toxic action of environmental agents. As part of this effort, five new faculty were recruited to the department, including Dr. Jim Yager, who assumed the position of director of the Division of Toxicological Sciences.
In 1985, an endowed professorship was established to honor Dr. Anna M. Baetjer; Dr. Gareh Green was selected to be the first recipient of this honor. In 1990, Dr. Green announced plans to retire from the chairmanship of the department. Over the next two years the department underwent a self-study review by internal and external expert committees. This review led to the reaffirmation of the importance of the department to the School's mission. During this critical period of transition, Dr. Robert Fitzgerald was appointed as acting chair of the department. Dr. Fitzgerald, a member of the faculty since 1967, ably steered the department through this period of transition.
Following an extensive search, Dr. John Groopman was selected as the new chair of the department and he assumed these responsibilities on January 1, 1993. In addition, Dr. Groopman became the second recipient of the Anna M. Baetjer Professorship. Dr. Groopman's expertise is in the development and application of molecular biomarkers to assess risk in human populations from exposure to environmental carcinogens. In 1995, Dr. Groopman also assumed the responsibilities of associate director of the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center for Cancer Prevention and Control. These interactions mark a larger effort to facilitate collaborations between departmental faculty and the Oncology Center in the area of environmental carcinogenesis. Today the Department of Environmental Health Sciences is a vibrant entity conducting research that spans the spectrum of acute and chronic diseases induced by environmental agents. Our linkages with the Schools of Medicine and Nursing ensure that our basic research can be rapidly translated into prevention strategies. At the present time we are organized into four research divisions: Environmental Health Engineering, Physiology, Toxicology, and Occupational and Environmental Health. These divisions are directed by Dr. Patrick Breysse, Dr. Wayne Mitzner, Dr. Thomas Kensler, and Dr. Brian Schwartz, respectively. |
