Advancing tools for human early lifecourse exposome research and translation (ATHLETE)

Abstract

Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Early life stages are vulnerable to environmental hazards and present important windows of opportunity for lifelong disease prevention. This makes early life a relevant starting point for exposome studies. The Advancing Tools for Human Early Lifecourse Exposome Research and Translation (ATHLETE) project aims to develop a toolbox of exposome tools and a Europe-wide exposome cohort that will be used to systematically quantify the effects of a wide range of community- and individual-level environmental risk factors on mental, cardiometabolic, and respiratory health outcomes and associated biological pathways, longitudinally from early pregnancy through to adolescence. Exposome tool and data development include as follows: (1) a findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable (FAIR) data infrastructure for early life exposome cohort data, including 16 prospective birth cohorts in 11 European countries; (2) targeted and nontargeted approaches to measure a wide range of environmental exposures (urban, chemical, physical, behavioral, social); (3) advanced statistical and toxicological strategies to analyze complex multidimensional exposome data; (4) estimation of associations between the exposome and early organ development, health trajectories, and biological (metagenomic, metabolomic, epigenetic, aging, and stress) pathways; (5) intervention strategies to improve early life urban and chemical exposomes, co-produced with local communities; and (6) child health impacts and associated costs related to the exposome. Data, tools, and results will be assembled in an openly accessible toolbox, which will provide great opportunities for researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders, beyond the duration of the project. ATHLETE’s results will help to better understand and prevent health damage from environmental exposures and their mixtures from the earliest parts of the life course onward.European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 874583—the Advancing Tools for Human Early Lifecourse Exposome Research and Translation (ATHLETE) project; Ramón y Cajal fellowship (RYC-2012-10995) awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Finance; Ramón y Cajal fellowship (RYC-2012-10995) awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Finance; National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (R21ES029681, R01ES029944, R01ES030364, R01ES030691, and P30ES007048); National Institutes of Health supported Dr. Conti (P01CA196569, R01CA140561) and Dr. Stratakis (P30DK048522); National Institute for Health Research under its Applied Research Collaboration Yorkshire and Humber; Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC-2014-CoG-648916); European Union’s Horizon 2020 co-funded programme European Research Area Net on Biomarkers for Nutrition and Health (European Research Area Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life) (Early life programming of childhood health project [number 696295; 2017], ZonMW, The Netherlands [number 529051014; 2017]; Agence Nationale de Securite Sanitaire de l’Alimentation de l’Environnement et du Travail (EST-18 RF-25)