Media Coverage
NEXUS – Towards a Human Exposome Cell Atlas
In December, the first session of the webinar series ‘Towards a Human Exposome Cell Atlas’, co-hosted by UNESCO, the Global Exposome Forum, and the Human Cell Atlas took place to explore how connecting the Exposome and the Human Cell Atlas can advance global health understanding and impact. This session focused on endocrine disruptors and examined opportunities and challenges in combining single cell mapping (HCA) and exposomics to advance the Human Exposome Project and human health in general. The meeting brought together a wide range of experts for lightning talks and a panel discussion.
View Article
European Science-Media Hub – Prof. Roel Vermeulen: ‘Understanding the exposome is key to building a healthier, fairer future’
How does exposure to chemicals, air pollution, stress or noise affect human health over the course of a lifetime? What about the complex interactions between environmental exposures, social determinants of health and genetics? The ‘exposome’ concept offers a framework for understanding and analyzing this complex reality of our health.
The ESMH spoke with Prof. Roel Vermeulen, author of an upcoming study on human exposome research, launched by the European Parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA).
View Article
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center – 3 Things Policymakers Need to Know About Exposomics
The lesser-known scientific field could help solve the biggest public health challenges the world faces today.
View Article
Publications
JAMA Network – Beyond Genes: Human Exposome Project to Tackle External Drivers of Disease
Samantha Anderer
The Human Genome Project began more than 30 years ago, creating a reference map that has since transformed the understanding of how genes contribute to health and disease. Now, the Human Exposome Project seeks to uncover how the complete range of environmental factors shapes health.
The exposome is the “integrated compilation of all physical, chemical, biological, and (psycho) social influences that ‘impact biology,’” as recently defined by the Banbury Exposomics Consortium, a group of scientific leaders in the field. In addition to more traditional environmental exposures—like air pollution or water quality—it considers lifestyle and social factors such as physical activity, sleep, and household income. The ultimate goal of the field is to chart the outcomes of these exposures from conception to death to improve health.
View Article
The Lancet – The human exposome project
Talha Burki
Growing interest in health and the exposome—a person’s collective environmental exposures—is spurring new funding and research initiatives. Talha Burki reports.
View Article
ALTEX – The Implementation Moonshot Project for Alternative Chemical Testing (IMPACT) toward a Human Exposome Project
Fenna C. M. Sillé, Francois Busquet, Suzie Fitzpatrick, Kathrin Herrmann, Lisa Leenhouts-Martin, Thomas Luechtefeld, Alexandra Maertens, Gary W. Miller, Lena Smirnova, Katya Tsaioun, Thomas Hartung
The Human Exposome Project aims to revolutionize our understanding of how environmental exposures affect human health by systematically cataloging and analyzing the myriad exposures individuals encounter throughout their lives. This initiative draws a parallel with the Human Genome Project, expanding the focus from genetic factors to the dynamic and complex nature of environmental interactions. The project leverages advanced methodologies such as omics technologies, biomonitoring, microphysiological systems (MPS), and artificial intelligence (AI), forming the foundation of exposome intelligence (EI) to integrate and interpret vast datasets. Key objectives include identifying exposure-disease links, prioritizing hazardous chemicals, enhancing public health and regulatory policies, and reducing reliance on animal testing. The Implementation Moonshot Project for Alternative Chemical Testing (IMPACT), spearheaded by the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT), is a new element in this endeavor, driving the creation of a public-private partnership toward a Human Exposome Project with a stakeholder forum in 2025. Establishing robust infrastructure, fostering interdisciplinary collaborations, and ensuring quality assurance through systematic reviews and evidence-based frameworks are crucial for the project’s success. The expected outcomes promise transformative advancements in precision public health, disease prevention, and a more ethical approach to toxicology. This paper outlines the strategic imperatives, challenges, and opportunities that lie ahead, calling on stakeholders to support and participate in this landmark initiative for a healthier, more sustainable future.
View Article
Science – Integrating exposomics into biomedicine
Gary Miller and Branbury Exposomics Consortium
For the past two decades, the notion that an individual’s exposure to multiple factors in the environment can influence health over their lifetime has been steadily maturing into an independent field of study. How do combined exposures to chemicals in the water, poor nutrition, and social stressors influence metabolism, cardiovascular function, or cognition? Such questions are complicated, and investigative research now spans a range of disciplines, from epidemiology and social science to biochemistry and molecular biology.
A major challenge for this expanding field of exposomics has been conceptualizing studies and developing methodologies in ways that connect the relevance of environmental exposures to biomedical research. Strengthening this association could benefit from establishing definitions that guide and unify the systematic analysis of environmental factors affecting health and disease. This would enable discovery-based analysis of the environmental influences on health and potentially improve disease prevention, treatment, and public health policies.
View Article
Exposome – The exposome at twenty: a personal account
Chistopher Paul Wild
Non-communicable diseases represent a major global health burden of the 21st century, being responsible for over 70% of deaths annually worldwide. Environmental exposures as a whole (ie, non-genetic) are the main contributors to these diseases, although the identification of many of the specific risk factors remains to be defined. The exposome encompasses the totality of environmental exposures throughout the lifespan. This fresh perspective encourages a more comprehensive approach to exposure assessment when seeking to establish exposure-disease associations. The fact a number of the technologies applied to the exposome measure events on the disease pathway provides the additional benefit of indicating the biological plausibility of such associations. This article provides a personal history of the exposome, which serves to highlight the reasons why an exposome was needed to complement the genome. The article closes with indications of future priorities: in particular, it is vital to remain focused on the overall prize of establishing etiology as a basis for preventive interventions that in turn lead to a reduction in morbidity and mortality.
View Article
ALTEX – A Call for a Human Exposome Project
Thomas Hartung
Four decades of the Human Genome Project and its consequences have shown how the entrepreneurial state, through significant investment into science, can drive scientific progress and advance biomedicine. A certain fraction of diseases can now be explained as caused by genetics, and a more significant fraction as impacted by genetics. Besides another fraction caused by pathogens, the third and probably largest impactor is exposure, i.e., the many physicochemical and lifestyle factors. This article makes the case that it is time to start a Human Exposome Project, which systematically explores and catalogs the exposure side of human health and disease.
The envisioned Human Exposome Project needs to be more than a scaled exposomics approach, aiming to assess the totality of relevant exposures through ~omics of human body fluids and forming exposure hypotheses. Exposomics is increasingly complemented by exposure science and biomonitoring to measure exposure, mechanistic understanding, human-relevant microphysiological systems, big data, and artificial intelligence (AI) to mine these data and integrate pieces of evidence. The potential impact of AI on a possible Human Exposome Project is so substantial that we should speak of exposome intelligence (EI) because this allows us to expand our limited current knowledge to the big unknown unknowns of threats to human health.
View Article
Nature Medicine – How AI can deliver the Human Exposome Project
Thomas Hartung
An ambitious Human Exposome Project aims to reveal how our environment shapes our health.
View Article
Multimedia
ABC Radio National’s Health Report – What is the exposome?
Presented by Norman Swan
The Human Exposome Project is a global effort underway to understand how the environment influences our health.
It includes exposures from our diets, our lifestyles and our behaviours.
It’s hoped that, like the Human Genome Project, it will help us prevent and treat things like heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.
Listen Here
