Research Areas

The Exposome is a forward-thinking concept in environmental health research that describes the measure of all the exposures of an individual in a lifetime and how those exposures influence health. Our center investigators have been leading efforts in advancing exposome research or “exposomics”, moving towards a more holistic approach to investigating environmental influences on health. Director, Lida Chatzi has played a pivotal role in establishing collaborative networks of birth cohorts across Europe and the United States. As a lead investigator of the Human Early Life Exposome (HELIX) project and co-Principal Investigator of the Rhea Birth Cohort Study, she developed numerous initiatives aimed at studying the effects of multiple environmental exposures on child health outcomes and to advance our understanding of the exposome. Our current center research endeavors build upon these past achievements, with a particular focus on leveraging the exposome framework to develop innovative methods and study design to advance exposomics research.

PFAS are a large class of ubiquitous chemicals with known human health risks. In recent years, our center has emerged as one of the leading research groups on PFAS exposure and human health, particularly in relation to metabolic diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and liver injury, as well as impacts on bone health and cancer. Our unique approach involves utilizing multidisciplinary study designs to better understand the mechanisms underlying these diseases and to develop practical, sustainable solutions.

Precision environmental health is an emerging discipline that harnesses environmental and omic data to decipher the root environmental causes of diseases, pinpoint biomarkers indicative of exposure and response, and devise innovative prevention and intervention approaches. Our work contributes significantly to advancing translational precision environmental health, achieved by integrating omics biomarkers into both human population data and experimental research designs. Our group has been instrumental in pioneering studies that leverage the integration of multiple omics, including metabolomics, proteomics, and miRNA analysis and employing cutting-edge statistical methodologies to delve into the mechanisms underlying the toxicity of environmental exposures. Recently, our center was awarded a grant to participate in the Multi-Omics for Health and Disease Consortium (MOHD, 1U01HG013288), which aims to advance the application of multi-omic technologies to assess molecular profiles associated with specific diseases in populations with different ancestral origins.

Environmental chemicals pose a complex challenge, especially on the context of climate change. Their impact on climate change stems from several factors: the energy-intensive production processes involved in manufacturing chemicals, the persistence of many chemicals in the environment leading to bioaccumulation in ecosystems, and the potential to bring to surface environmental chemicals buried underground. Our center is investigating the environmental and health impacts of the proposed solutions to climate change and drought. We have leveraged our collaboration with investigators from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering to develop complex predictive models for PFAS groundwater mobilization in the case of wastewater reclamation and groundwater recharge. The goal is to quantify the impact of PFAS exposure as a result of implementing the proposed climate change adaptive strategies.