The seventh annual Exposome Bootcamp took place on the campus of Columbia University in New York City, bringing investigators from all career stages and around the world for two days of intensive seminars and hands-on analytical sessions. These sessions provided an overview of concepts, techniques, and data analysis methods used in exposome research. The Bootcamp is structured to foster meaningful connections, professional development, and the open exchange of key ideas among all attendees. The collaborative nature of the event enabled participants from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to expand their knowledge and skillset to better understand the exposome.
The Bootcamp was led by a team of scientists in the field of exposomics, whose expertise spans a wide array of disciplines including environmental health, data science, exposure sciences, toxicology, engineering, and biochemistry. This multidisciplinary background enabled the program to cover the full breadth of the field of exposomics. Most of the instructors are formally affiliated with NEXUS. The Bootcamp kicked off with an opening lecture from the program training director, Gary Miller, PhD, Columbia University, which helped set the stage for the next two days. He showed a timeline of key achievements and breakthroughs in the field of exposomics over the past two decades. He highlighted Christopher Wild’s 20th anniversary retrospective in the journal Exposome that explained the setting that led up to his introduction of the term exposome and his views of how the field has grown. Dr. Miller also described the role of NEXUS in promoting and advancing the science of exposomics.
The first day included a series of lectures that focused on the technical approaches of mass spectrometry-based measurement of constituents of the exposome. Doug Walker, PhD, Emory University, presented “Optimizing mass spectrometry for exposomics.” He explained how each of the components of the mass spectrometers worked and how his team has optimized various aspects to improve the detection of environmental compounds. This was followed by the lecture “Wearable technologies for measuring the exposome — from wristbands to sensors” by Krystal Pollitt, PhD, P.Eng.,Yale University. Dr. Pollitt has been a leader in the use of sensors for exposomics, and she provided methodological details and real-world examples of how wearables can be used to measure the exposome.
The next series of presentations focused on dealing with the data that is produced by the mass spectrometers. Randolph Singh, PhD from Columbia University, presented “Cheminformatic approaches and resources for identifying unknown features in HRMS-based exposomics.” There are a wide range of tools now available, and he explained the advantages and limitations of many of these so that participants could tailor their future studies for their specific goals. Participants then engaged in intensive computer lab sessions “HRMS step by step” and “HRMS data association studies,” which were led by members of the Columbia University Biomarkers Core Laboratory and Center for Innovative Exposomics, including Yunjia Lai, PhD, Vrinda Kalia, PhD, Brooklynn McNeil, Hanisha Udhani, and Saurabh Dubey. The goal of these sessions was to walk the participants through each of the steps needed to link the mass spec signals to disease outcomes.
Day two began with “A perspective on exposome biology, epidemiology, and medicine” by Dean Jones, PhD, Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Jones was an early adopter of high-resolution mass spectrometry, and he provided his insights for how the field could maximize its impact. He also explained the never-ending efforts to improve measurement technology. Along those lines, the next talk by Shuzhao Li, PhD, The Jackson Laboratory, focused on “Transforming the analytic pipeline with asari.” The asari platform was developed by his team as a more robust, efficient, and faster means of analyzing mass spec data.
The aforementioned instructors have been part of the Exposome Bootcamp team and participated in many past events. This year, we were pleased to expand the scope of the training by the addition of geospatial and more advanced exposure and data science approaches. NEXUS MPI Rima Habre, ScD from the University of Southern California, presented “Geospatial approaches for assessing the external exposome.” She described a wide range of datasets and methods for extracting knowledge from where people live, work, and socialize and how to assess a suite of environmental (built, natural, chemical, physical, biological) and sociocultural exposures someone encounters over the life course. This was followed by a presentation and lab by Chirag Patel, PhD, Harvard Medical School “Data science and exposome-wide association studies (ExWASs).” Fifteen years ago, Dr. Patel published the first environmental-wide association study. He has built a platform for conducting this type of study at a true exposome scale taking advantage of the improvements in measurement technology, and has made his approach, code, and analytics environment open to bootcamp participants.
The Bootcamp concluded with its annual debate. This year’s topic was “Existing biobanks are sufficient to realize exposome biology, epidemiology, and medicine.” Dr. Jones and Dr. Miller took the for side while Dr. Habre and Dr. Patel took the against side. They addressed questions like “Do biobanks have enough information about exposures? Is there enough follow-up data? Is there enough complete data? Do they represent global populations?” The debate encouraged participation from attendees, who asked thought-provoking questions and shared their perspectives. Dr. Jones and Dr. Miller accepted their “defeat” gracefully, acknowledging that while existing biobanks have a lot to offer the field will need additional study populations and follow-up to achieve what is needed for the field.
As noted, this year’s Bootcamp benefited from the inclusion of key NEXUS team members. We hope to use the Bootcamp as a springboard to additional NEXUS-supported training opportunities. Please check back at nexus-exposomics.org to learn more about future courses.