Welcome

The University of Kentucky Superfund Research Center (UKSRC), funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), integrates multidisciplinary research, training, and stakeholder engagement around a common theme: reducing health risks posed by environmental contaminants in communities. We investigate the impact of persistent halogenated organics (e.g. PCBs, PCE, TCE, and PFAS), aim to reduce the toxic effects of these chemicals, and seek to promote health equity in communities. UKSRC uses an intervention and prevention paradigm that fosters healthy lifestyles (i.e., healthful nutrition and increased physical activity) to reduce the disease risks associated with exposure to Superfund pollutants and designs engineered solutions to reduce exposures through innovative sensing, remediation and fate and transport science.

UKSRC leverages the expertise of prominent and promising scholars who bring diverse disciplinary perspectives to the challenges that are central to our goals. It is deeply committed to achieving research excellence and to improving science, policy decision-making, and to working in partnership with our community stakeholders to promote health and well-being of the people living in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and beyond.

News

Cultivating research partnerships for environment and health innovations at East European Conference on Health and the Environment (CEECHE)

The University of Kentucky Superfund Research Center (UKSRC) and the University of Kentucky Department of Civil Engineering partnered with Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) to host the 20th anniversary Central and Eastern European Conference on Health and the Environment (CEECHE). This year’s theme, “Seeking Solutions for Environmental Exposures and Disease Risks”, brought approximately 100 researchers from 16 countries together from July 15 to 19, 2024, to focus on developing solution-oriented research and collaborations to grapple with common, yet increasingly complex, challenges associated with legacy and emerging pollution.

University of Kentucky Superfund Research Center (UKSRC) study links ‘forever chemical’ PFOS with colorectal cancer.

A UKSRC team of researchers led by Dr. Yekaterina Zaytseva is studying perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) exposure on gastrointestinal (GI) pathology. The GI tract is directly exposed to environmental pollutants via contaminated drinking water, food and other sources.

David Lu, Ph.D candidate and US Department of Energy Scholar brings internship experience to Paducah, Ky.

David Lu, completed his summer internship at the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management (EM) headquarters in Washington, D.C. in August. Lu was able to arrange a tour of a cleanup site near his hometown in Western Kentucky.