Human health depends on complex states of equilibrium which on the one hand can be genetically determined and on the other, can be influenced by the environment. How strongly do environmental factors affect human health? What molecular and cellular mechanisms underlie these disorders? What new preventative and therapeutic strategies can we derive from this? Answering questions like these is the key goal of the research done in this programme.

The work focuses on common diseases such as inflammations of the respiratory tract, allergies and cancer, whose formation is significantly influenced by environmental toxic agents such as particulate airborne pollutants (aerosols), chemicals and ionising radiation. The scientists take two approaches. Firstly they look at the toxic agent to identify it and to understand its diseasetriggering mechanism so that they can develop risk assessment and risk reduction strategies. Secondly, they consider the diseases themselves and study their developmental mechanisms to find out what kind of role environmental factors play in all this.