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Four Rotations to Realign
an Entire Field

Engineered Resilience: A Biotech Strategy for chronic diseases linked to pollution

The Enigma of Chronic Diseases

The vast majority of major disease diagnoses in the U.S. are labeled "sporadic" or "idiopathic," which is clinical shorthand for an unknown cause. This includes certain cancers, autoimmune disorders, metabolic syndrome and neurodegenerative diseases. Chronic conditions that are increasing in rates across the U.S.

No single agency owns this problem. The NIH studies disease mechanisms. The EPA regulates chemical exposure. The FDA approves drugs. The terrain between these fields have become a graveyard for potential translational science. However, this liminal space can be an opportunity for understanding the earliest stages of cellular perturbations, prior to disease onset. For example, a pesticide disrupts cellular mechanisms which unearth specific molecular vulnerabilities that could be a treasure trove of new targets for intervention.

The Core Insight

Toxicology field has spent decades mapping how chemicals disrupt cellular pathways that could be used for uncovering therapeutic targets. Biotech has the infrastructure to turn this untapped biology into early interventions. Four rotations can align these fields.

Four Rotations

1 The Bench: Measuring Toxicity → Target Discovery Toxicology has spent a century defining limits and flagging danger for regulators. That trapped the field in observation mode. Instead of asking what dose kills a rat, it should be what molecular pathways are perturbed by exposures and where can we intervene? Read more 2 Clinical Translation: Late-Stage Treatment → Early Intervention Medicine is brilliant at crisis management and terrible at risk mitigation. We can edit genes only after the system collapses. The next frontier is catching disease in its molecular infancy. Read more 3 Policy: Reactive Regulation → Proactive Incentives When the EPA was established, there was a wave of pollutant regulations. Mandates have stalled in recent decades, yet pollutants continue to be a major contributing factor to chronic conditions. New incentives could promote development of early interventions and prevent disease onset. Read more 4 Chemical Defense: Crisis Response → Engineered Resilience The U.S. has many countermeasures to protect against infectious agents. However there are few approaches to counteract the negative effects of pollutants. Monitoring and defending against pollutant exposures should be given the same priority as building biosecurity infrastructure. Read more

What Success Looks Like

Why start at the bench? Because toxicology has spent decades mapping how pollutants disrupt cellular pathways. This is a goldmine of untapped therapeutic targets. Translating this knowledge into clinical interventions and defense countermeasures creates the evidence that shifts policy from damage control to prevention.

Start here
Bench
Molecular targets from exposure data
→
Clinic
Biomarkers enable early intervention
Defense
Countermeasures against exposures
→
Policy
Evidence drives prevention incentives

Engineered Resilience

We're building the research framework to make this realignment possible—bringing together researchers, biotech innovators, and policymakers to translate environmental health science into therapeutic solutions.

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References

  1. Rappaport SM, Smith MT. Environment and disease risks. Science. 2010;330(6003):460–461. Link
  2. Rappaport SM. Genetic factors are not the major causes of chronic diseases. PLoS ONE. 2016;11(4):e0154387. Link
  3. Natural Resources Defense Council. The Costs of Inaction: The Economic Burden of Fossil Fuels and Climate Change on Health in the United States. 2021. Link
  4. Attina TM, Hauser R, Sathyanarayana S, Hunt PA, Bourguignon JP, Myers JP, et al. Exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the USA: a population-based disease burden and cost analysis. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2016;4(12):996–1003. Link