The overall mission of the University of Minnesota TTURC is to reduce the harm posed by tobacco through research, training, and communication. Toward that end, we are assessing methods to reduce tobacco toxin exposure in hopes of reducing disease and death in those smokers who are unwilling or unable to quit.

Currently, our primary goals are to:

1. Identify reliable and valid biomarkers for assessing exposure to tobacco-related toxins and for measuring the toxicity of individual tobacco products, including potentially reduced-exposure tobacco products.
   
   
2. Examine factors associated with individual differences in response to nicotine using animal models and human research data.
   
   
3. Continue to test methods or approaches that would produce significant reductions in tobacco-related toxin exposure, and by testing these approaches, determine policies that would result in the least harm to public health.
   
   
4. Determine if a reduction in smoking can improve smoking cessation rates.

Our vision is to identify safe, effective methods for reducing the harm caused by exposure to tobacco–both among users of tobacco and among those exposed to environmental tobacco smoke.