Applied exposome programme: exposures interacting with our health

TNO is working together with partners on technology and methods to monitor and interpret these exposures, relate them to health effects and to develop effective methods of prevention.

The promising potential of the exposome

Many common disorders are closely linked to exposures that range from lifestyle factors to chemical exposures, social interactions and stress. Collectively, these exposures have a huge impact on health in society. Many exposures can potentially be modified to prevent disease. Unfortunately, we often can’t explain why one person will develop a certain disease while another won’t, due to the complex interrelation between exposures and effects.

The exposome concept can help bridge this gap in knowledge. This will provide important information that can form the basis of prevention, for example: why one person becomes ill and another doesn’t under the same circumstances, how different exposures combined may lead to effects on health, and what the early signs of the negative effects of exposures are.

Exposome and working life health

Since people spend a large part of their lives at work, occupational exposure is an important factor. Exposures at work often are higher and more complex than generally outdoors or in home environments, and working is closely related to lifestyle and behaviour (e.g. diet, physical activity, smoking and alcohol consumption) and socio-economic status. We apply the exposome concept to occupational exposures in order to develop evidence-based and effective preventive measures that enhance workplace health:

• Sensors and sensor-based methods for obtaining personal exposure profiles throughout the working day, providing better insights into who is exposed, where a person is during higher exposures and what the reasons for this exposure are. Read more: virtual occupational hygiene assistant;
• Innovation of other internal and external exposure assessment techniques such as a point of care assay for biomarkers of benzene in urine or passive sampling devices.
• Combining data mining methods with internal exposure and exposure-response modelling in order to obtain mechanistic insights that will help identify early markers of disease, exposures with similar health effects or insights on vulnerability. In addition, these techniques can contribute to innovation of risk assessment methods.
• Lastly, TNO coordinates the EU EPHOR project in which a large consortium of EU partners develops and applies methods and tools to characterize the working-life exposome in order to obtain better and more complete knowledge on the working-life exposome. The developed methods and knowledge will be made available to scientists, occupational health practitioners and policy makers in a toolbox. Read more about the project.

Exposome and urabn health

Everybody is exposed to urban exposures such as air pollution, noise and heat during their life. We therefore develop methods to better characterize exposures in an urban environment by combining sensors with high resolution environmental modelling:

• In the Eindhoven Area, TNO is mapping air quality on an individual level by setting up large-scale sensor networks together with industry, public authorities, citizens and knowledge institutes. Read more about measuring air quality.
• Within the Precisie geneeskunde voor meer zuurstof (P4O2) consortium led by AMC, TNO in collaboration with a company that has developed a COPD health management tool will develop a methodology for assessing indoor air quality exposure in COPD patients which will be incorporated in the health management tool for more optimal prevention of attacks.

That is why we develop models and biomarkers to characterise the internal exposome (doorlink pagina). In addition, we further develop and apply exposome methods, e.g. sensors, passive sampling, data mining, and (non-invasive) biomonitoring methods in large groups of workers, in the EU EPHOR project that we coordinate.

Immune Exposome

Between 15 and 20% of the people in the western world suffer from inflammatory diseases. Inflammatory processes also play a central role in many other disorders. The functioning of the immune system is driven by inflammatory balances. These balances depend on a complex interplay between intrinsic (host) and extrinsic (chemical and microbial) factors. At TNO we investigate the key extrinsic factors involved and the mechanisms and interactions through which these interact with our immune system, which is crucial for the development of safe and effective interventions and management practices for allergic and inflammatory diseases. Read more about allergic and inflammatory diseases.

Join us

Thanks to our multidisciplinary nature and our in-house experts ranging from sensor developers to exposure scientists and from systems biologists to behavioural scientists, we are able to unravel the exposome.

Together with partners from industry and research, we work in partnerships that are essential for taking this field further, towards applications. We have strategic partnerships with the NIOSH in the US and HSE in the UK and with the Utrecht Exposome Hub on exposome research. If you would like to know more about our exposome activities or collaborate with us, please get in touch.

Publications

• Personal exposure to UFP in different micro-environments and time of day
• Comparison of Methods for Converting Dylos Particle Number Concentrations to PM2.5 Mass Concentrations
• Calibration of polydimethylsiloxane and polyurethane foam passive air samplers for measuring semi volatile organic compounds using a novel exposure chamber design
• Biomarkers of exposure in environment-wide association studies – Opportunities to decode the exposome using human biomonitoring data
• How Sensors Might Help Define the External Exposome
• Future Prospects of Occupational Exposure Modelling of Substances in the Context of Time-Resolved Sensor Data
• Exposome-based public health interventions for infectious diseases in urban settings
• Ethics and Privacy Considerations Before Deploying Sensor Technologies for Exposure Assessment in the Workplace
• A Quantitative Meta-Analysis of the Relation between Occupational Benzene Exposure and Biomarkers of Cytogenetic Damage | TU Delft Repositories
• Exploring Evaluation Variables for Low-Cost Particulate Matter Monitors to Assess Occupational Exposure | TU Delft Repositories
• Human biomonitoring in health risk assessment in Europe: Current practices and recommendations for the future | TNO Publications