On Friday, October 7th, the grand opening of the new laboratories for human exposome research at the RECETOX center took place. The event was initiated by the center’s director, Jana Klánová, who welcomed the guest, Richard Woychik, Director of the US National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), who started the event with his lecture “Planning the Future of Environmental Health Sciences.”
Richard first introduced the concept of the exposome, its history, and the strategic plan that NIEHS has developed over the past year, aiming to transform the approach to health research to emphasize the influence of the exposome. He highlighted the importance of international collaboration and described how environmental studies and their impact on human health are conducted at NIEHS, including the six research areas the institute focuses on.
Woychik also outlined the current challenges that the exposome and the development of infrastructure for its research present, such as the development of new technologies or the collection and handling of large amounts of data necessary for such complex research. Lastly, he introduced Gary Miller, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University, who leads the NEXUS Coordinating Center for exposome research in the United States.
This was followed by a round table discussion with representatives from Czech ministries and various international institutions. Among the panelists were Zsófia Pusztai, Head of the WHO Office in the Czech Republic, Radislav Sedláček, Director of the Czech Centre for Phenogenomics, Ondřej Májek, Head of the International Relations Department at the Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic (ÚZIS), Pavel Doleček, Deputy Minister for Science, Research and Innovation, and Václav Velčovský, Chief Director of the International Relations, EU and ESIF Section at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.
The EIRENE IMP project was officially launched during a two-day hybrid kick-off meeting held on 25–26 June 2026 at the Technology Centre Prague. The opening event brought together project partners, representatives of national nodes of the EIRENE RI research infrastructure, and project managers from the beneficiary and the European Commission.
