Wayne State University's Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors (CURES) received a $7.5 million five-year renewal from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, the Detroit university announced. The previous grant was a three-year grant worth $2.4 million.

The center is researching the chemical and nonchemical contaminant impacts on public health in the city, the university said in a news release. Its goal is to offer solutions for a cleaner and healthier living and working environment in Detroit and the region. As part of the program, which was started in 2014, researchers have worked to respond to health crises in the region, including the Flint water crisis, the release said.

"Our goal is to provide leadership that will identify, evaluate and mitigate environmental health concerns in close collaboration with the community and environmental policy makers," CURES Director Melissa Runge-Morris, M.D., said in the release. "Detroit has an overabundance of industrial and post-industrial environmental toxicants, socioeconomic strains, violence and decay of housing and urban infrastructure, and we have assembled a unique interdisciplinary team of established and new environmental health scientists and community partners to address major environmental health challenges facing Detroit's racially and ethnically diverse population."

More information on CURES and the grant here.