Title: Toxic Harvest: How Agrochemicals and Endocrine Disruptors May Fuel Cancer Risks

By: Alok Deoraj, M.S., Ph.D.

Teaching Professor and Graduate Program Director (MPH-EHS)

Department of Environmental Health Sciences

Bio-sketch: Dr. Alok Deoraj is a teaching professor and Master of Public Health program director in the Environmental Health Sciences department at the College of Public Health and Social Work at FIU. His primary focus is developing curricula, teaching environmental and global public health, and One Health courses for undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students. Dr. Deoraj obtained his doctorate from the National Institute of Immunology - JNU, New Delhi, India, and then he worked in academia and the biotechnology industry before joining the FIU. He has over 60 publications in peer-reviewed journals, books, and magazines in diverse research fields of his interest. Dr. Deoraj has been with FIU for the last 15 years and has been involved with numerous committees, research groups, and the FIU senate. In his research, Dr. Deoraj investigates the impact of complex environmental chemical exposures on the molecular pathology of carcinogenesis and metastasis. In today's presentation, Dr. Deoraj will explain innovative health risk assessment methods that use integrative bioinformatics to identify pathways involving hub genes in his research. These pathways show how exposure to heavy metals and complex environmental chemicals may contribute to poor cancer prognoses in patients.