Exposome Hub
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Exposome Hub

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Environmental hazards account for a probably large, but not well characterised, proportion of the burden of disease. The exposome, described as "the totality of human environmental exposures from conception onwards", recognizes that individuals are exposed simultaneously to a multitude of different environmental factors and takes a holistic approach to the discovery of etiological factors for disease. The exposome’s main advantage over traditional ‘one-exposure-one-disease’ study approaches is that it provides an unprecedented conceptual framework for the study of multiple environmental hazards (urban, chemical, lifestyle, social) and their combined effects.

Promises of the Exposome

  • Holistic → Complex system, multiple exposures, mixtures.
  • Life-course → Temporal sequence.
  • New tools/technology → Coverage and accuracy of exposures (omics, sensors, etc.).
  • Internal exposome → Early biological responses.
  • Untargeted discovery → Unknown exposures.

The characterisation of the exposome and its related health effects requires continuous innovation in the development of tools and methods, including for exposure assessment, integration of omics markers, data infrastructures, and complex data analysis. Interdisciplinary collaboration is key to this.

ISGlobal has established itself at the forefront of international exposome research through its coordination of, and partnership in, several large international exposome projects funded by the European Commission (see projects).

ISGlobal’s Exposome Research Hub brings together a cross-faculty network of researchers across the following programmes:

This in order to promote excellence, innovation, and collaboration in exposome research, and to meet the training needs of researchers in this field. 

Large Exposome Projects at ISGlobal

Lines of Research across ISGlobal Programmes

  • Internal exposome, chemical exposures, endocrine disruptors.
  • External exposome, urban environment (e.g. air pollution, noise, built environment including green spaces), GIS-based exposure characterization, and modelling and measurement of exposures.
  • Working-life exposome, harmonisation of occupational exposure assessment throughout Europe (EuroJEM).
  • Biological responses/internal exposome through omics technologies, epigenetics, transcriptomics, inflammatory proteins, allostatic load, accelerated ageing, gut microbiome, metabolomics.
  • Cohort implementation and harmonization: mega-cohorts for occupational health, longitudinal mother-child cohorts, adult cohorts, mega-cohorts from administrative data.
  • Exposure and health: mental health and neurodevelopment, cardio-metabolic health, obesity, respiratory health.
  • Bioinformatics for multi-omics integration, federated data analysis (analyses when data are stored on federated databases or, more generally, in different repositories, e.g. Datashield).
  • Advanced data modelling for exposure mixtures and causal inference.
  • Characterization of the air from urban and rural environments: determination of physical properties of particles (from coarse to ultrafine particles), analysis of chemical (metals, non-metals, etc.) and biological  (bacteria, fungi and viruses) composition. AIRLAB: core facility laboratory.

Our Team

Hub Coordinator

Hub Project Manager

Hub Committee

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Highlighted Projects

EXPANSE

EXposome Powered tools for healthy living in urbAN SEttings

HELIX

Novel tools for integrating early-life environmental exposures and child health across Europe

ATHLETE

Advancing Tools for Human Early Lifecourse Exposome Research and Translation

LIFECYCLE

Early-life stressors and LifeCycle health

Other projects

See Past Projects

EPHOR

Exposome Project for Health and Occupational Research

ONES

Fine Particle Matter, Fetal Growth, and Neurodevelopment: Examining Critical Windows of Susceptibility

MCC-Spain

Population based multicasecontrol study on common tumours in Spain

EGG/EAGLE

Early Genetics Growth/Early Genetics and Lifecourse Epidemiology

PACE

Pregnancy and Childhood Epigenetics

EUCAN-Connect

A federated FAIR platform enabling large-scale analysis of high-value cohort data connecting Europe and Canada in personalized health

OBERON

An integrative strategy of testing systems for identification of EDs related to metabolic disorders

AURORA 2021

Actionable eUropean ROadmap for early-life health Risk Assessment of micro- and nanoplastics

AIR-NB

Pre-natal exposure to urban AIR pollution and pre- and post-Natal Brain development

NutinBrain

The role of seafood and nut consumption on human neurodevelopment from pregnancy to adolescence

UrbanKids

Urban and social environment and childhood obesity – a natural moving2health experiment

iGenCO

In-Depth Genomics and Cross-Omics Analysis for Undiagnosed Rare Diseases on a User-Friendly Collaborative Platform

CityExposomeCat

An Exposome Approach to Urban Health: Individualized Environmental Exposure Assessment in an Adults Population Cohort Study (GCAT)

TOLIFE

Combining Artificial Intelligence and smart sensing TOward better management and improved quality of LIFE in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

intoDBP

Innovative Tools to Control Organic Matter and Disinfection Byproducts in Drinking Water

EXPONIT

Analysing and studying how night shift work affects workers' circadian rhythms and health

IHEN

International Human Exposome Network