The ChemBio Analytical Sciences Hub team is working collaboratively to coordinate community-developed state-of-the-art tools and resources and to develop best practices to measure the exposome in both biological and environmental samples.
The Hub is Co-led by Krystal Pollitt, PhD, P.Eng., Yale University, and Thomas Metz, PhD, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and supported by team members Randolph Singh, PhD, Columbia University and Jeremy Koelmel, PhD, Yale University. The team is working to standardize the science of exposome research and make it more accessible to researchers everywhere, ensuring that the study of the exposome keeps expanding.
The goals of the ChemBio Analytical Sciences Hub are to develop an Exposome Workbench for the analysis of exposome data, create an Exposome Kit of curated molecules to serve as a physical community resource to democratize exposome measurements, host Interactive Workshops for advancing exposome measurement science, and conduct the NEXUS Exposome Harmonized Measurements Initiative.
The initiative will be a collaborative, community-based effort to assess the exposome chemical space covered by current and emerging technologies in biological and environmental matrices and to develop harmonized methods for its measurement. As a first step, the ChemBio Analytical Sciences Hub requests the community’s input via a survey on methods and tools used to measure molecular features of the exposome. The survey results will be used in part to inform efforts under the initiative towards harmonized methods for measuring the exposome.
In May, Dr. Pollitt, Dr. Metz, and Dr. Singh participated in the inaugural Exposome Moonshot Forum and met with key stakeholders in a satellite meeting to discuss detailed aspects of the NEXUS Exposome Harmonized Measurements Initiative and lessons learned from past, similar efforts.
In the main meeting program, Dr. Metz participated in the panel on “Road to Success: Learning from Other Major Bold Initiatives” alongside Delia Nicoară, PhD, Institutul Oncologic din Cluj-Napoca, Craig Wheelock, PhD, Karolinska Institute and Robert Wright, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The panel discussed how the field of exposomics can learn from other successful, large initiatives such as the Human Genome Project and the Joint Action on Networks of Expertise on Cancer (JANE-2) to shape the Human Exposome Initiatives.
Dr. Pollitt participated in the panel discussion on “Enabling Technologies for Advancing Exposomics” with Benjamin Barratt, PhD, Imperial College London, Geetha Senthil, PhD, NIH/ NCATS and Este Geraghty, Esri. NEXUS MPI Rima Habre, University of Southern California and Emilie Calabre, MEERSENS moderators the session which explored how the human exposome will be characterized with discussion focused on future challenges and innovative ideas.