Seminar – Occupational and Environmental Health in China: Challenges and Opportunities (Professor David Christiani)

Lecture by Dr. David Christiani, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Physician, Pulmonary and Critical Care Unit at MGH, where he directs the Molecular Epidemiology Research Group. Dr. Christiani received his M.D. from Tufts University in 1976, followed by Masters Degrees in Public Health and Physiology from the Harvard University School of Public Health. He did his postgraduate medical training at Boston City Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. His research interests include environmental and molecular epidemiology. He has led several major research projects in the United States, including projects on molecular studies of lung cancer, esophageal, bladder, and skin cancers, pollutant-induced cancers, as well as acute lung injury and chronic obstructive lung disease. He is a leader in research on gene-environment interactions.

In addition, he has developed extensive cooperative ties with industrializing countries in Asia, Africa, and Central America since the early of 1980s, and has led and conducted many studies on environmental and occupational health in these countries. Dr. Christiani is at the forefront developing and adapting of epidemiologic and laboratory techniques to the conditions to international studies. He lived in Shanghai from 1981-2, during which time he and his Chinese colleagues initiated the Shanghai Textile Workers Study, now in its 25th year. He returns to China often. He has been an Honorary Professor at Shanghai Medical University (now Fudan University) and Tongji/Huazhong University. He is also a consultant to the Public Health Department of the Putuo District People’s Government in Shanghai and the Chaoyang Hospital/Capital Medical University Respiratory Disease Center in Beijing.

Dr. Christiani lectured on Occupational and Environmental Health at the 2007 and 2006 China Senior Health Executive Education Programs.