The Superfund Research Program at the University of Iowa (isrp) has received a 5-year renewal of funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health. The program is a joint endeavor involving basic, mechanistic, and applied research projects in biomedical and environmental research areas addressing semivolatile polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

The isrp, based at the UI College of Public Health since 2005, is an inter-disciplinary collaboration of 17 researchers representing several departments and colleges on the UI campus. Researchers from the UI CPH includes Larry Robertson, Gabriele Ludewig, Hans-Joachim Lehmler, David Osterberg, Peter Thorne, Kai Wang, and Michael Jones.

New funding for the period 2015–2020 brings the total of NIH support for this effort in excess of $40 million.

The overall goal of the isrp is to identify atmospheric sources, exposures, and potential consequences to human health of semi-volatile PCBs—especially those PCBs that are associated with contaminated waters, former industrial sites, and buildings (especially school buildings). 

The isrp works closely with citizen groups in the Chicago metropolitan area where many ethnic-minority citizens are living below the poverty line near de-industrialized sites. A Training Core and the research projects provide for the training of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars each year (70 have been trained in the previous funding period). Overall this multidisciplinary program brings a broad range of experience and expertise, and institutional resources, to bear on problems associated with Superfund chemicals that are critical to the Midwest and the nation.