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Partner in the spotlight: REGIONH

Mapping Exposure-Induced Immune Effects: Connecting the Exposome and the Immunome

Partner in the spotlight: REGIONH

May 2, 2023

Bispebjerg Hospital at Region Hovedstaden (REGIONH) in Denmark is our next partner in the spotlight. It is a large community hospital with many different specialties, complex patient cases and a diverse patient group. Part of Copenhagen University Hospital, it serves a sizeable number of people in the Copenhagen area.

The Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine is the actual partner in EXIMIOUS. They are a clinical unit specialized in occupational and environmental medicine with a dedicated research unit conducting both clinical and epidemiological research in environmental and occupational medicine. The department contributes to the project with the established nationwide Danish register-database DOC*X and DOC*X Generation cohorts. Its main role in EXIMIOUS is to contribute to work on epidemiological population studies and in conducting statistics on databases while bringing new methods into exposome research and epidemiology. This is possible especially through close collaborations with the NRCWE, Biogenity and Aarhus University, and making use of advances in AI technology while also taking the time to understand the differences and advantages of new approaches compared to more traditional epidemiological methods.

The grounds of Bispebjerg Hospital at Region Hovedstaden in Denmark.

The REGIONH team is represented in EXIMIOUS by Camilla Sandal Sejbaek, Mette Møller Dornfeldt, and Esben Meulengracht Flachs, who have extensive knowledge of nationwide registers, of epidemiological and statistical methodologies, and a wide range of experience in exposure assessment.

To learn more about the work being done in EXIMIOUS and how the DOC*X and DOC*X Generation cohorts are being used to help understand occupational exposures, check out the article Understanding work exposures: where AI and epidemiological analyses meet in the first issue of our EXIMIOUS newsletter.

Third EXIMIOUS Newsletter out now – birds and bronchi inflammation

Mapping Exposure-Induced Immune Effects: Connecting the Exposome and the Immunome

Third EXIMIOUS Newsletter out now – birds and bronchi inflammation

April 28, 2023

We have just released the third issue of our EXIMIOUS Newsletter, bringing you the latest project news and event updates. In this spring issue, we invite you to learn about invasive bird species in Barcelona, the workers who protect the city from bird pests, and what this job has to do with inflamed bronchi.

In an interview, EXIMIOUS researcher Dr. María-Jesús Cruz talks about a research visit by her colleagues from the Belgian Center for Occupational Hygiene to the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) and the park workers from the Urban Pest Control and Surveillance Service in Barcelona, Spain. She also explains why Barcelona is so popular among various bird species, particularly among parrots. Why are parrots considered an invasive species, and what can be done about this?

Following this conversation, we zoom in on two closely-related EXIMIOUS cohorts: the occupational park workers cohort and the disease cohort consisting of people diagnosed with hypersensitivity pneumonitis. Learn from the researchers at VHIR why these groups are of particular interest to the EXIMIOUS project and to environmental health research in general. 

We hope you enjoy the read, and stay tuned to learn more about the disease cohorts in the next issue! If you want to make sure you do not miss anything, subscribe to receive the next newsletter straight in your mailbox.

From data management to exposure to crystalline silica: EXIMIOUS presents at the EPICOH and SOT 2023 conferences

Mapping Exposure-Induced Immune Effects: Connecting the Exposome and the Immunome

From data management to exposure to crystalline silica: EXIMIOUS presents at the EPICOH and SOT 2023 conferences

April 6, 2023

Dr. Manosij Ghosh from our team at KU Leuven and Dr. Evangel Kummari from NIPH had the opportunity to present some of EXIMIOUS’ most recent results at the 29th International Symposium on Epidemiology in Occupational Health EPICOH 2023 in Mumbai and the 2023 Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting in Nashville. Read on to learn about what they preented and how their respective conference experiences were.

One of the key milestones for EXIMIOUS was to set up a data management plan (DMP) that would enable the smooth, safe and efficient handling of data within the project while also making it as FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) as possible for other users. The EXIMIOUS project includes cohort studies involving teh collection and analysis of many data types, such as biological samples, biobank data, register-based cohort data among others. Thus, setting up a DMP and the related tools and infrastructure requires a substantial amount of work and collaboration between all partners. This resulted in one of EXIMIOUS’ first tools: the DMP-Check. While we look forward to making it publicly available soon, this was the core of Dr. Manosij Ghosh’s presentation at EPICOH 2023, titled ‘FAIR Data management in exposome research – a case study from the EU-funded EXIMIOUS project‘.

Our work was well-received and generated some discussion around FAIR data management- including questions of whether the EXIMIOUS experience could be translated to other projects, and if the data management framework, which is based on European regulation, could be implemented in a broader context.

Organised as a hybrid event on the 14-17th March, the EPICOH 2023 conference was attended by about 200 in person and more than 100 online participants. The EXIMIOUS work was presented in one of the 6 parallel session on ‘Occupational Epidemiologic methods’, which was attended by about 30 participants in person. “Our work was well-received and generated some discussion around FAIR data management- including questions of whether the EXIMIOUS experience could be translated to other projects, and if the data management framework, which is based on European regulation, could be implemented in a broader context.” says Manosij on reporting from his conference experience. “There was curiosity about scenarios which were the most challenging for EXIMIOUS”.

The EPICOH 2023 chairs and speakers for the 'Occupational Epidemiologic Methods'session. [Dr. Manosij Ghosh is the first from the right]

Just a few days later and on the other side of the globe, Dr. Evangel Kummari presented an exploratory analysis titled ‘Exposure Induced Immune Effects of Crystalline Silica Particles on Human Whole Blood using High Dimensional Immune Cell Profiling‘. The study focuses on changes in immune cell profile in human whole blood when exposed to crystalline silica. The findings of the study will help in understanding occupational high-level exposure of silica dust that has been shown to cause several lung diseases and systemic autoimmune diseases. This type of exposure is common especially for mine workers, which the EXIMIOUS project explores in more detail also through a dedicate cohort of workers who are exposed to mineral dust and organic solvents.

With more than 70 Featured and Scientific Sessions, more than 2,000 poster presentations and the three-day ToxExpo featuring 250 companies, the 2023 SOT Annual Meeting was a highly participated event that brought researchers and industry representatives from across the globe to gather in Nashville on the 19-23rd March. Having returned from the conference with a positively received poster presentation, Evangle says “The society of toxicology conference is the hotspot for toxicologists every year to gather, share and learn about the most happening research in toxicology. I have been attending SOT for a few years now and the knowledge I gained at this conference has helped shape my scientific research and career.”

The society of toxicology conference is the hotspot for toxicologists every year to gather, share and learn about the most happening research in toxicology. I have been attending SOT for a few years now and the knowledge I gained at this conference has helped shape my scientific research and career.

Dr. Evangel Kummari presenting her poster at the 2023 SOT Annual Meeting.

Providing an opportunity to the EXIMIOUS team to present very different results to a broad and equally diverse audience, these two conferences opened the season of presentations, with more to come in the next months.  To learn more about the results from our EXIMIOUS partners, subscribe to our newsletter!

Partner in the spotlight: Biogenity

Mapping Exposure-Induced Immune Effects: Connecting the Exposome and the Immunome

Partner in the spotlight: Biogenity

February 23, 2023

Today our partner in the spotlight is Biogenity – a Contract Research Organisation (CRO) focusing on making bioinformatics, Machine- and Deep Learning accessible. Converting data into biology is Biogenity’s mission, which is why explainability is one of the main focusses of development in Biogenity. This focus has made the Biogenity team experts in explainable Artificial Intelligence (AI), opening the black box of these models.

The organisation provides a full-service Omics Core Facility for proteomics, metabolomics, transcriptome, and multi-omics with the aim of turning these complex datasets into useful knowledge using Machine Learning and bioinformatics, helping researchers get from sample to biology. Omics have become a central driver in the R&D field of basic, medical and clinical research, making understanding this data critical. Biogenity’s founders have also created Omics Studio, an early-stage software that combines multi-omics, machine learning, network analysis, and bioinformatics to assist in the discovery of biomarkers for new diagnostics, prognostics, and therapeutics targets.

Within the broader scope of EXIMIOUS, Biogenity, represented in the project by Kenneth Kastaniegaard and Alessandro Ranieri, collaborates with NRCWE and Statistics Denmark to analyse the large datasets of the DOC*X cohort, containing over forty years of occupational and medical data of a large part of the Danish population. Although modern AI has advanced significantly in only a few years, health records remain relatively underused. By training machine learning models on such data, and combining the learned parameters with a variety of explanatory techniques, the outcome of the project will include generating hypotheses for targeted statistical analyses, build novel tools for interpreting the datasets, and finally to provide insight on the relationships between occupational exposures and autoimmune diseases.

The Biogenity team of researchers contributinmg to the EXIMIOUS project.

To learn more about the work being done in EXIMIOUS and how AI is being used to help understand occupational exposures, check out the article Understanding work exposures: where AI and epidemiological analyses meet in the first issue of our EXIMIOUS newsletter.

‘Do chemicals penetrate human skin?’ – Take-aways from the 4th EXIMIOUS Symposium​

Mapping Exposure-Induced Immune Effects: Connecting the Exposome and the Immunome

'Do chemicals penetrate human skin?' – Take-aways from the 4th EXIMIOUS Symposium​

2 February 2023

More than 80 participants joined the fourth EXIMIOUS Symposium “Do chemicals penetrate human skin? How skin absorption of chemicals contributes to human exposure” held online last Thursday, 26 January 2023. Did you miss it? Worry not, you can watch the full recording on the EXIMIOUS YouTube channel.

The three guest speakers, Dr. Jos Bessems (VITO, Belgium), Dr. Anneli Julander (IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, Sweden), and Dr. Jeroen Vanoirbeek (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium), each zoomed in on a different aspect of skin exposure to chemicals through their latest research. Altogether, they showed a broad picture of the topic that was accessible to the non-expert audience while also providing researchers in the field with new insights. 

In the first talk, Dr. Jos Bessems explained why the internal dose should be considered the key factor in creating toxicity. He showed that some chemicals can penetrate the human skin and be absorbed by it. The exact nature of this process depends on the route of penetration and other factors such as the skin’s hydration level but also age and gender. Dr. Anneli Julander focused on three case studies to explore the dynamics of skin penetration and absorption of metals as well as the so-called ‘reservoir effect’ observed for certain metals that through our skin may accumulate in the body over time. These case studies took us through the penetration of Nickel across damaged skin barriers (common for those who present atopic dermatitis), the role of skin as a previously neglected exposure route for cobalt and its importance especially in view of cobalt originating from nanoparticles (common in several modern industries and especially associated to 3D printing), and the potentially important reservoir effect for lead introduced through a study of lead exposure for workers in a brass foundry. Adding to the diversity of case studies, Dr. Jeroen Vanoirbeek introduced the case of firefighters and their exposure on the workplace to a complex mixture of chemicals, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). PAHs are rated as carcinogenic to humans and, according to previous studies, skin cancer appears to be the most prevalent type of cancer among firefighters. However, while respiratory (inhalation exposure) protection measures for firefighters are well-established, skin (dermal exposure) protection and risk assessment tools are much less so. This is where Dr. Vanoirbeek’s study comes into play, as he presented an assessment of different compounds that could be best suited as indicators of PAH exposure and internal dose, to determine dermal exposure. As the results of this study are currently preliminary and of confidential nature, they are not shared in the recording of the event at this point.

While there is still much to be understood about skin exposure dynamics, this symposium highlighted the diversity of chemicals that can penetrate the skin, the role they might play in the body and immune system and the variety of situations in which skin exposure to chemicals can take place. We are grateful to the invited guest speakers for sharing their latest research and taking us through this insightful discovery journey. 

We’re looking forward to more exposome research highlights and insights during the Spring/Summer 2023 edition of the EXIMIOUS Symposium, so stay tuned. If you’d like to be notified about the next EXIMIOUS Symposium you can also subscribe here and we’ll send you an invitation in due time.

Registration is open for the 4th EXIMIOUS Symposium

Mapping Exposure-Induced Immune Effects: Connecting the Exposome and the Immunome

Registration is open for the 4th EXIMIOUS Symposium

6 December 2022

The fourth EXIMIOUS Symposium, titled “Do chemicals penetrate human skin? How skin absorption of chemicals contributes to human exposure”, will take place on 26 January 2023. Register now and join us online at 16:00 – 18:00 (CET) to learn more about skin exposure to chemicals.

What happens when the human skin comes into contact with particular chemicals? To what extent do they get absorbed into the body, and what are the health effects?

Our invited guest speakers will present their latest research on internal exposure and toxicity, skin exposure to metals, and the exposure of firefighters’ instructors. A dedicated time for Q&A will follow each of the presentations. Like our previous symposia, this fourth EXIMIOUS Symposium is open to all audiences.

Programme EXIMIOUS Symposium
“Do chemicals penetrate human skin? How skin absorption of chemicals contributes to human exposure”
Time Title Speaker

16:00 - 16:15

Welcome and introduction from the EXIMIOUS coordinator

Prof. Peter Hoet
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

16:15 - 16:50

Why ADME and ToxicoKinetics are pivotal to know: internal exposure as ‘missing link’ between exposure and toxicity

Dr. Jos Bessems
VITO, Belgium

16:50 - 17:25

Systemic dose of metals – the role of skin penetration, reservoir and absorption

Dr. Anneli Julander
IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, Sweden

17:25 - 18:00

External and internal exposure of firefighters’ instructors to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

Dr. Jeroen Vanoirbeek
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

Speakers

Dr. Jos Bessems has been active in supporting chemicals management in the EU since 1996. He contributed to OECD Test Guideline development, the REACH Implementation Project, as well as the ECHA REACH Guidance. At VITO, Jos is working on tools for human biomonitoring as well as on how to increase its regulatory acceptance and use under the flag ‘policy support environment and health’  for Flemish, Belgian as well as European authorities. He also supports the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the European Commission’s Directorate General Environment (DG ENV) in early warning systems, classification and labelling and ‘substances of very high concern’. Jos is co-founder and board member of ISES Europe, contributed to its European Strategy for Exposure Science and is co-chairing its human biomonitoring working group.

Dr. Anneli Julander holds a PhD in Environmental Science from Örebro University in 2004. She continued her research career at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, where she received her appointment to Docent in Occupational and Environmental Medicine in 2014. Anneli is currently working at IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute as a senior researcher and work environment expert. Her research area is to study how toxic and allergenic chemicals interact with human skin and causes local and systemic effects.

Dr. Jeroen Vanoirbeek graduated in 1999 as master in Biology. In 2004 he obtained his PhD at the KU Leuven. His research focused on chemical-induced asthma and specifically the mechanisms of the skin-lung interactions in relation to chemical sensitization. Currently, he leads the Laboratory for Occupational and Environmental Hygiene in the Centre for Environment and Health at the KU Leuven. His main research topics are respiratory and skin exposure assessment, in combination with biological monitoring; clinical-epidemiological research on occupational health; and mechanisms of skin-lung inaction of chemicals in experimental models. In his current appointment, he is responsible for teaching occupational hygiene and prevention management.

EHEN’s November 2022 Newsletter – focus on the health impact of exposome research​

Mapping Exposure-Induced Immune Effects: Connecting the Exposome and the Immunome

EHEN's November 2022 Newsletter - focus on the health impact of exposome research

10 November 2022

The European Human Exposome Network (EHEN) just released its third newsletter and you don’t want to miss it. Alongside providing updates from the network’s working groups and the 9 exposome projects (including EXIMIOUS) that are part of it, the newsletter introduces the health impact of exposome reaserach, exploring the breadth and diversity of the diseases being studied by the EHEN projects.

How can the research outputs of EHEN have a concrete impact on health and what is th erole of policymakers? Which four health areas are of focus across the nine EHEN projects? What are autoimmune diseases, and did you know they are also of interest in exposome studies? You can find the answer to these and many other questions by reading the full Newsletter.

The newsletter also announces the launch of the EHEN Toolbox, where the tools developed by the projects are all collected in an online go-to resource for all stakeholders interested in exposome research. Moreover, in the newsletter you’ll also find the latest publications from all nine projects, with a featured publication from the LongITools project focused on cardiovascular health.

Enjoy the read!

Partner in the spotlight: NIPH

Mapping Exposure-Induced Immune Effects: Connecting the Exposome and the Immunome

Partner in the spotlight: NIPH

September 5, 2022

Our partner in the spotlight series continues, and we’re glad to present the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH). The NIPH is a research institute organized under the Ministry of Health in Norway. Its goal is to produce and communicate knowledge on health-related topics to the Norwegian government, to promote a longer and healthier life. Topics covered include infectious diseases, environmental health, non-communicable diseases and mental health. To perform these tasks, the institute has an infrastructure of laboratories, registries and biobanks in place. The main outputs are systematic reviews and advisory reports to support the government in the development of policies on health and care services. The knowledge is based on an extensive research portfolio that is mainly funded by external grants from the Norwegian Research Council, the European Union and others.

The Department of Environmental Health at NIPH provides research data on the effects of environmental factors like chemicals, air pollution, radiation and noise on human health. Exposure to chemicals is studied with a state-of-the-art biological monitoring laboratory. The research portfolio supports science-based advice to the Norwegian Food Safety Authority and the Norwegian Environment Agency, and their European counterparts EFSA and ECHA. Chemical hazard and risk assessments are important deliveries of the department as well as research activities related to immunotoxicology, epigenetics, inhalation toxicology and neurotoxicology. The department is also a partner in several EU projects, including HBM4EU, ATHLETE, POLYRISK, ULTHRAS, ONTOX and the Partnership for the Assessment of Risk from Chemicals (PARC).

Our department aims to drive the field of immunotoxicology forward by identifying immune effect biomarkers for use in epidemiological exposure studies as well as develop in vitro screening assays. To achieve this, our work focuses on high-dimensional immune profiling and systems immunology. Mass cytometry, also called cytometry by time-of-flight (CyTOF), has emerged as a powerful tool for high-dimensional analysis of the immune system’s cellular composition and function at the single-cell level. The CyTOF platform at NIPH has expertise in CyTOF applications within the fields of toxicology, immune-related diseases, systems immunology, bioinformatics, infections and vaccinology.

In EXIMIOUS, NIPH is represented by an experienced team of researchers including Unni C. Nygaard, Berit Granum, Hubert Driven, Nur Duale, Hege Hijertholm, Birgille Linderman, Anette Kocbach Bolling, and Evangel Kummari. They make use of CyTOF to identify immune-cell signatures that are able to discriminate between autoimmune disease states or exposure patterns in cohort studies, and to study changes in immune-cell function following exposure of selected components of the exposome in vitro. The CyTOF analysis enables simultaneous detection of 40-50 markers and will include markers for classification of immune-cell subtypes and their activation status as well as functional markers such as intracellular cytokines. Unsupervised algorithms and statistical analyses will be used to identify immune-cell profiles associated with exposures and specific health outcomes. NIPH will also be responsible for delivering epigenetic data on DNA methylation and microRNAs.

The NIPH team of researchers contributinmg to the EXIMIOUS project.

Immune differentiation linked to age and exposure: outputs from the 3rd EXIMIOUS Symposium​

Mapping Exposure-Induced Immune Effects: Connecting the Exposome and the Immunome

Immune differentiation linked to age and exposure: outputs from the 3rd EXIMIOUS Symposium

5 July 2022

The third EXIMIOUS Symposium “Immune differentiation linked to age and exposure” was held online on 23 June 2022. Don’t worry if you missed it, the full recording of the event is available on the EXIMIOUS YouTube channel.

Three invited guest speakers, Prof. Niels Hellings (Hasselt University, Belgium), Dr. Juan Aguilera (Stanford University, USA) and Dr. Tobias Stöger (Helmholtz Zentrum München, Germany), presented their latest research on the effects of diverse aspects of aging and exposure on immune differentiation. 

To kick-off the event, Prof. Peter Hoet  and Dr. Manosij Ghosh (KU Leuven, EXIMIOUS coordinating team) introduced the EXIMIOUS project as part of the European Human Exposome Network (EHEN). Guest expert Dr. Tobias Stöger was then the first to present his work, on the mechanisms of particle-cell interactions during the course of particle-induced lung inflammation. As this involved some of the most recent findings from his lab, the presentation was not recorded, but keep a look out for upcoming publications to learn more. Bringing in the perspective of health related to climate change, Dr. Juan Aguilera discussed the role of climate change and air pollution in relation to immune changes and diseases in humans. To complete the theme of this symposium, normal versus pathological immune aging was presented by Prof. Niels Hellings, covering the key aspects of their triggers, measures, and intervention.

The symposium brought together more than 40 attendees, who participated in an insightful Q&A following each of the presentations. With a warm thank you to our guest experts, we’re looking forward to continue the exchange on the latest exposome research and to learn from leading experts in the field in the next EXIMIOUS Symposium. If you’d like to be notified about the next EXIMIOUS Symposium, subscribe here and we’ll send you an invitation in due time.

EHEN’s April 2022 Newsletter – insights into exposure data

Mapping Exposure-Induced Immune Effects: Connecting the Exposome and the Immunome

EHEN’s April 2022 Newsletter – insights into exposure data

5 April 2022

The European Human Exposome Network (EHEN) just released its second newsletter and you don’t want to miss it. Alongside providing updates from the network’s working groups and the 9 exposome projects (including EXIMIOUS) that are part of it, the newsletter introduces the key types of datasets used to explore how diverse environmental exposures, such as air pollution, our lifestyles and our workplaces, affect our health.

According to recent studies, as many as 20% of all deaths in Europe are related to environmental factors and only 4.3% of the entire population has a clean bill of health. That is why EHEN is working on ways to change those numbers for the better, by studying a broad range of exposures and creating a toolbox for improved health care.

What types of datasets are key to this research? How are the data used? How does the result of innovation, such as Google AirView Car work? You can find the answer to these and many other questions by reading the full Newsletter.

Moreover, the newsletter presents the recently published profile papers of 8 of the 9 EHEN projects, including EXIMIOUS, in which the concepts of exposome studies, exposure data collection and analysis are described.

Enjoy the read!