UK has won an NIH grant to minimize the damaging environmental and health impacts caused by hazardous waste sites.
The award from the National Institutes of Health was announced Monday on UK's Lexington campus.
UK Superfund Research Center Director Dr. Bernhard Hennig, professor of nutrition and toxicology in the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, says the grant will support work by more than 50 contributing scientists and students.
“The best way to tackle some of these diseases that may be caused by environmental exposure to these chemicals is to improve your overall health through nutrition, and increases in physical activity, and we have evidence in the laboratory that this works," Hennig told WUKY.
The center's environmental science researchers are working to develop new methods to detect hazardous chemicals and clean up contaminated sites.
UK says Kentucky is home to more than 200 federal Superfund sites, including 14 active sites on a list of the country's worst sites.