Environmental health research considers effect of pollutants

Researchers will use smartphones equipped with GPS and environmental sensors to monitor potential hazards that study participants are exposed to. This information will be combined with blood and urine analysis to investigate whether exposure to risk factors leaves chemical fingerprints that can be detected in bodily fluids.

The €8.7m (£6.9m) Exposomics project, involving 12 partner institutions, is said to mark the European Union’s biggest investment in environmental health research to date.

Project leader Prof Paolo Vineis, from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, said: ‘The sequencing of the human genome has provided a wealth of information about genetic susceptibility involved in disease, but it has become clear that the diseases with the greatest burden, such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, are mainly caused by factors other than genetics.

‘These are likely to include aspects of lifestyle and the environment, but the precise roles of different factors in causing diseases are not well understood.’