" Over 200 years ago, Gregor Mendel conducted his pioneering experiments experiments about inherited traits that provided the foundation for the field of genetics. Now, genomics and exposomics have come together at the site of his discoveries to open a new era of biomedical research," said Jana Klánová.
The concept of the exposome was introduced earlier this century defined as an environmental complement to the genome. For most complex diseases, genomics can explain 20% of disease variability, but the remaining 80% is due to exposures from our environment and the interactions between the genes and environment. Exposomics aims to study the exposome–the combination of physical, chemical, biological, and social factors that impact our health. Today, it has matured to provide biochemical, molecular, and geospatial methods for capturing these complex influences and their impact on our bodies.
Chirag Patel, a bioinformatician at Harvard, said: "Genome-wide association studies revolutionized how we studied genes and disease. Exposome-wide association studies are now poised to revolutionize how we study the environment and disease. If we can interdigitate genomics and exposomics, we will get the best of both worlds, and I am confident that the resulting synergy will change science." Attendees discussed how to incorporate exposomics into large studies with over a million people, including biobanks which preserve blood and other samples from participants. There were discussions about the use of mass spectrometry to measure thousands of molecules in blood samples, how sensors and wearables can track people’s exposures, the ethical and privacy concerns that result from this type of research, artificial intelligence to predict future disease, and how to get the findings into the clinic as fast as possible.
Interim Executive Director of EMBL, Ewan Birney, encouraged the exposomics field to develop data standards analogous to those developed for genomics: "With robust data structures, we can merge the complex genomic and exposomic datasets collected from large population cohorts in a biologically meaningful manner. New artificial intelligence workflow will permit us to distill these massive datasets into models that improve human health."
Klánová and Miller highlighted that collaborations nurtured over the past decade between the European and U.S. teams have been instrumental in advancing the field of exposomics. " The Human Genome Project made it possible to study all of the genetic drivers of disease. Exposomics is ready to do the same for the environmental drivers of disease. If we can merge the discoveries from genomics and exposomics, we will have the knowledge needed to develop strategies for the prevention and treatment of all of the diseases that afflict us. This meeting was historic in that it is the first time leaders of the genomics and exposomics communities have come together to figure out how to combine forces," added Gary Miller. Kári Stefánsson, the founder of deCODE Genetics, summed the meeting up with the sentiment “Genomics and exposomics cannot live without each other.”
