The University of Texas at El Paso has teamed with the Health Science Center of the University of New Mexico to conduct a five-year research program investigating the relationship of air and soil quality to asthma in El Paso children.      Funded by a grant from the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, the program is part of UTEP’s thrust to expand its healthhealth and biomedical research, particularly in problems relevant to the El Paso community. Initial-year funding is $1 million; the complete program could total $5 million.           The grant partners UTEP with its sister institution in New Mexico, permitting joint research projects that play off the strengths at both campuses. In particular, it allows UTEP researchers to tap into specialized facilities, laboratories, and research teams at UNM, which maintains an extraordinary level of NIH-funded research activities.      The program directors, Professors Nicholas Pingitore of UTEP and Scott Burchiel of the UNM HSC, lead an interdisciplinary team of engineers, scientists, and health scientists from the two universities, working within UTEP’s Center for Environmental Resource Management.      Funded under the auspices of the Advanced Research Cooperation for Environmental Health program of the NIEHS,   the UTEP—UNM HSC ARCH Program on Border Asthma is comprised of a tightly-coordinated suite of six research projects investigating various aspects of the relationship of asthma in children to air and soil quality.