In May 2025 over 400 global leaders in science, medicine, business, and policy convened in Washington, D.C. for the Exposome Moonshot Forum. The event signaled the launch of an unprecedented effort: a global Human Exposome Project.
Long envisioned as a counterpart to the Human Genome Project, the Human Exposome Project seeks to systematically characterize the totality of environmental, social, chemical, and behavioral exposures that shape human health across the lifespan. Effort to fully establish the “exposome” as an essential field of public health research have existed since the term was coined by Christopher Wild in 2005. What set this initiative apart from others is its truly international, bottom-up approach. A central aim of the 2025 meeting was to integrate a diversity of international perspectives spanning industry, academia, government and civil society priorities to engage nations and leaders in the Global South. With the signing of the Washington, D.C. Declaration on the Human Exposome, this goal was cemented and a strategic organization charged with achieving this goal was formed. At the time of the signing, leadership from the NIH announced a parallel project focused on exposomic data generation, standardization, and sharing.
This complimentary project signaled the agencies support for exposomics-related initiatives at the same time that it committed to the development of resources essential for the efforts success. Thus, the Global Exposome Forum (GEF) was formed. Now existing as an international coalition of regional governments, multi-national institutions, NGOs, and research collaboratives collectively organizing around a shared vision of global health and disease prevention. GEF exists in response to the current moment in which exposomics is reaching full scientific maturity and now requires political and social investment and acceptance to make impact and radically redefine public health. By bringing science, policy, and society into conversation, the Forum supports a more coordinated, synchronous, truly global approach to advancing exposomic research and positive impact on health and society.
