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Dean Perry collaborates with fellow researchers and students to advance interprofessional, multidisciplinary research on chemicals and fertility.
Interprofessional research is key to our College of Public Health, and public health laboratory research is helping Mason advance its research goals. College of Public Health Dean Melissa Perry’s research lab is now located at Mason’s Science and Technology Campus (SciTech), where she studies the impacts of environmental chemicals on reproduction with support from College of Public Health students, as well as students and faculty from other colleges.
The nature of her work is interprofessional – and the Dean is pleased to share lab space with Lance Liotta, professor in the School of Systems Biology, and Virginia Espina, professor in the Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine, at the Institute for Advanced Biomedical Research.
“This is a very unique collaboration between the College of Public Health and the College of Science. Scientists are coming together to recognize how we could bring a variety of different scientific perspectives to understand interdisciplinary problems,” said Dean Perry. “The work that I'll be doing with Dr. Espina, Dr. Liotta and their team is an opportunity for epidemiologists, biostatisticians, data informaticists, and social scientists to work together with molecular biologists to understand how environmental chemicals impact a variety of health problems, including reproductive problems."
On February 2, Mason President Gregory Washington visited Perry’s research lab to learn more about her ongoing environmental epidemiology research. The visit showcased the valuable role research plays in public health and public health research at Mason.
“Without research, you can’t advance public health,” Washington said. “Research provides the baseline knowledge necessary to understand how and where diseases are propagating, the connections between our external environment, the provocation of those diseases, and how we react to them as humans.”
“The momentum that the College of Public Health contributes to Mason’s research goals has a global impact on making the world a better place and allows us to understand some of the most pressing health problems facing our country and our world,” said Perry.
Public health laboratory research and Mason’s SciTech campus will play an important role as the College continues to grow its research portfolio, including furthering support for the Health Starts Here cohort and continuing the plans with Inova to establish a biorepository.