U.S. Army Center for Environmental Health Research

The U.S. Army Center for Environmental Health Research is located at Fort Detrick, Md., USA. Once a biological warfare testing laboratory, our completely renovated building includes state-of-the-art aquaculture facilities and laboratories specifically designed for aquatic toxicology and molecular biology. Our staff is an interdisciplinary team of scientists and technicians who are dedicated to improving risk assessment methods and to developing biomonitoring technologies for military environmental health hazards. We consult and collaborate with other U.S. Military and government organizations, as well as partner with industry and academia, to enhance our research base and share resources. The USACEHR is an outgrowth of a robust and comprehensive toxicology program that existed as part of the US Army Biomedical Research and Development Laboratory (USABRDL) under the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC). Although USABRDL was closed under the 1991 Base Re-alignment and Closure Act, a small contingent remained onsite to support research on the use of sentinel species and bioassays for detecting environmental pollutants. Supported by the United States Army Corps of Engineers as part of installation remediation, this effort established key elements and innovative concepts for medical and environmental surveillance. This effort was renamed the United States Army Center for Environmental Health Research (USACEHR) and was organizationally placed under the United States Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine (USARIEM). Currently, the USACEHR is under the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense (USAMRICD). This organizational relationship is beneficial to both organizations, because the missions are closely related.

In response to changing requirements and the availability of new biotechnologies, the USACEHR is now focusing upon two research areas: Environmental Sentinel Biomonitoring Systems and Biomarker Discovery and Toxicogenomics.