Research - Our Team

Léa Maitre is an Assistant Research Professor at ISGlobal and coordinates the Exposome
Hub initiative, promoting innovation, collaboration and communication about this new field of
research.
During her Ph.D. and first postdoc position at Imperial College London, United Kingdom, she
obtained extensive experience on metabolomics and pregnancy outcomes, acquiring broad
knowledge in NMR spectroscopy and advanced statistical methods in molecular epidemiology.
Since then, she has focused on the extension of this field in the Exposome.

Her participation in
European projects on this topic included the scientific coordination in the HELIX project (2013-
2018), task leadership in the ATHLETE project (2020-2024), and WP leadership in the
International Human Exposome Network project (2024-2026). She has been teaching and
coordinating a 5- days online course on Exposome advanced tools as part of the International
Summer School on Advanced Methods in Global Health in English and Spanish.

Her main research interests are in the application of interdisciplinary research (omics,
environmental epidemiology, toxicology) to understand early life environmental influences on
health and biological mechanisms. She received the Ramon y Cajal fellowship by the Spanish 
Government (2024-2029).

Main Projects

• BEGIN marató (exposome modelling) 
• ATHLETE (participation in WP4 biological responses) 
• IGRO (steroid metabolome in pregnant women and child development) 
• Exposome Data Challenge Event: 3-day online conference with more than 308 registered
  participants from the five continents and 27 presentations from leading universities. April 2021
  
  >> See most recent work

Lines of research

• Exposome in pregnancy, childhood and adolescence.
• Metabolomics integration in epidemiological studies.
• Molecular (omics) response to external stressors (chemical, physical, psycho-social) in observational human studies.
• Exposome, neurodevelopment and mental health

Main publications

• Fabbri L, Garlantézec R, Audouze K, […] Maitre L. Childhood exposure to non-persistent endocrine disrupting chemicals and multi-omic profiles: A panel study. Environ Int. 2023 Mar;173:107856. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2023.107856.
• Maitre L, Jedynak P, Gallego M, Ciaran L, Audouze K, Casas M, Vrijheid M. Integrating - omics approaches into population-based studies of endocrine disrupting chemicals: A scoping review. Environ Res. 2023 Jul 1;228:115788. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2023.115788. 
• Maitre, L., Bustamante M, Hernández-Ferrer C, et al. Multi-omics signatures of the human early life exposome. Nature Communication. 13, 7024 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34422-2 
• Maitre, L., Guimbaud, J.-B., Warembourg, C., et al. Env Int. 2022. State-of-the-Art Methods for Exposure-Health Studies: results from the Exposome Data Challenge Event. doi: doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2022.107422
• Gallego-Paüls M, Hernández-Ferrer C, Bustamante M, […] Maitre L. Variability of multi-omics profiles in a population-based child cohort. BMC Med. 2021;19(1). doi:10.1186/s12916-021-02027-z
• Maitre L, Julvez J, López-Vicente M, et al. Early-life environmental exposure determinants of child behavior in Europe: A longitudinal, population-based study. Environ Int. 2021;153. doi:10.1016/j.envint.2021.106523
• Maitre L, Robinson O, Martinez D, et al. Urine Metabolic Signatures of Multiple Environmental Pollutants in Pregnant Women: An Exposome Approach. Environ Sci Technol. 2018;52(22):13469-13480. doi:10.1021/acs.est.8b02215
• Maitre L, et al. Maternal urinary metabolic signatures of fetal growth and associated clinical and environmental factors in the INMA study. BMC Med. 2016 Nov 4;14(1):177. doi: 10.1186/s12916-016-0706-3