Exposing the Human Exposome

The NIEHS Exposure Science and the Exposome Webinar Series
June 19, 2018
NIEHS

Purpose

The NIEHS Strategic Plan places a significant emphasis on transforming exposure science through the development of new approaches to exposure assessment, the definition and dissemination of the exposome concept, and the development and demonstration of the exposome as a tool for both epidemiological and mechanistic research. In order to achieve this goal, NIEHS launched the Exposure Science and the Exposome Webinar Series on April 4, 2014 to foster discussions on international efforts in advancing exposure science and the exposome concept as well as challenges and opportunities in incorporating this concept in environmental health research.

Abstract

Human health is heavily influenced by environmental exposures, of which the diversity and variation is poorly understood. We developed a high-sensitivity method to monitor personal airborne biological and chemical exposures by integrating a wearable device and multiple-omics measurements. By following 15 individuals for up to 890 days, we demonstrated that individuals are exposed to thousands of species and chemical compounds. We found that personal exposomes are highly dynamic and vary spatial-temporally, even for individuals located in the same geographical region. We constructed a season-predictive model based on the pan-domain genera profile. Integrated analysis of biological and chemical exposomes revealed strong location- dependent relationships. Finally, we built an exposome interaction network consisted of a stable human- and a dynamic environment-centric cloud. Our study describes a unique method to capture and analyze personal environmental exposures, and demonstrates that human exposomes are diverse, dynamic, spatiotemporally-driven with the potential to impact human health.

About the Speaker

Dr. Michael Snyder is the Stanford Ascherman Professor and Chair of Genetics and the Director of the Center of Genomics and Personalized Medicine. He received his Ph.D. training at the California Institute of Technology and carried out postdoctoral training at Stanford University. He is a leader in the field of functional genomics and proteomics. His laboratory study was the first to perform a large-scale functional genomics project in any organism and has developed many technologies in genomics and proteomics. These include the development of proteome chips, high-resolution tiling arrays for the entire human genome, methods for global mapping of transcription factor binding sites (ChIP-chip now replaced by ChIP-seq), paired-end sequencing for mapping of structural variation in eukaryotes, de novo genome sequencing of genomes using high throughput technologies and RNA-Seq. These techniques have been used for characterizing genomes, proteomes, and regulatory networks. He has also combined different state-of-the-art "omics" technologies to perform the first longitudinal detailed integrative personal omics profile (iPOP) of humans and has used this to assess disease risk and monitor disease states for personalized medicine. Dr. Snyder is the author of the book: Genomics and Personalized Medicine: What Everyone Needs to Know.