Saurabh Chatterjee, PhD, a professor of environmental and occupational health as well as a professor of medicine, felt the catastrophic effects of climate change firsthand in his country of birth, India. He knew at a very early stage of his career that he wanted to build a research and academic career in studying the effects of environmental hazards on the world’s populations.
After completing his doctoral degree in inflammation biology at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in Mumbai, India, where he focused on how heat stress can affect multi-organ failure and stroke pathology, Chatterjee pursued his postdoctoral work at NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Laboratory of Pharmacology and Toxicology. Following his post-doc work at the NIH, he began to dig deeper into how environmental hazards can affect liver disease development at Duke University Medical Center and would spend the next few years charting a path toward looking at environmental pollution’s profound impact on public health and medicine.
Chatterjee joined the UCI Program in Public Health in September, after having spent the last 10 years at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health where he established the Environmental and Disease Laboratory. He has spent the better part of a decade with his lab members researching climate change factors, such as heat, air, flooding, and water, and their long-term health implications in children, adults, pregnant women, and the elderly. For the last several years, Chatterjee’s lab discovered the unique connection between the millions of bacteria found in the host gut and their relationship with different organ systems in causing disease. Notably, Dr. Chatterjee’s research and collaborations with other investigators led to funding from NIH for the multi-investigator, multi-site Center for Oceans and Human Health and Climate Change Interactions at the University of South Carolina.
“Climate change has unmistakably accelerated in the past decade, and we’re looking at some serious changes to our environment and with that change, we can expect our public health to potentially deteriorate as a result,” Chatterjee emphasized. “Everything is connected. Air pollution and asthma; extreme heat exposure and cardiovascular disease; and increases in the risk of susceptibility to infectious diseases – the list goes on.”
Climate change has unmistakably accelerated in the past decade, and we’re looking at some serious changes to our environment and with that change, we can expect our public health to potentially deteriorate as a result.”
– Saurabh Chatterjee, PhD
Chatterjee was attracted to UCI Public Health and the vision of what’s to come. He is looking forward to expanding his lab’s collaborations with the campus community to address this century’s public health challenges. “I believe that research has the power to bring communities together. And that community can be as local as our university’s campus, or as far as another continent. Research builds partnerships.”
One such example of a current project is his work on studying algae blooms in the northwestern and northeastern parts of the U.S. Through the work of climate change modeling, they found that exposure to toxins that are found with algal blooms in freshwater lakes, can alter the host microbiome and connect to altered brain inflammation Their work was quoted in the USDA guidelines for public health practitioners.
Another area of research and public health service that Chatterjee focuses on is working with veterans. In addition to his UCI appointment, he is a research health scientist with the Department of Veterans Affairs at the Long Beach VA Medical Center. He looks at the long-term health implications of exposure to chemicals during military deployments and the associated disorders.
Chatterjee’s research in the last five years through a bench to bedside approach led to the establishment of a first-ever microbiome targeted clinical trial that uses short chain fatty acid butyrate, an OTC drug.
“We can no longer ignore the direct link of our environment to public health and its threat on our health. We must bridge the gap between research and policy. Quite frankly, our future depends on it.”
Chatterjee currently mentors five PhD students and is proud to serve the foundations of public health and the people of southern California through his lab’s pathbreaking research, mentoring, and service.
