IARC to host online scientific symposium about the exposome

21 May 2024

Scientific researchers, health policy experts, and ethicists are invited to register for the final symposium of the European Union-funded Human Exposome Assessment Platform (HEAP) project, “Humanity and the Environment: Moving Exposome Research from Information to Action”, hosted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

The free two-day event (27–28 May 2024, 9 am to 5 pm CEST) offers a panorama of the latest collaborative exposome research and its associated legal and ethical challenges. The interactive format of 16 presentations will be followed by Q&A sessions, with full online participation encouraged. Registration is open until 8 am CEST on 27 May.

In recent years, researchers have made huge advances in understanding environmental exposures, their biological mechanisms, and their health effects. Despite this, many gaps persist in our scientific knowledge. For example, the incidence of cancer is rising, and the role or roles of the exposome in this increase are not fully understood.

The HEAP research projects demonstrate the breadth of the potential new approaches that can be implemented in gathering and analysing scientific data: from wearable sensors and consumer receipts to biological samples, cohort studies, and health registries, all aiming to provide answers to these questions and inform public health policies, now and in the future.

The symposium will also explore the legal and ethical challenges faced by exposome researchers in their work, which often involves managing and sharing sensitive data in the context of collaborative and international research projects. As the scientific need for accessing, processing, and interpreting data grows, so does the imperative of addressing those legal and ethical challenges.

As a HEAP project consortium partner, IARC is leading the Education and Dissemination Work Package, using best practices from previous European Union-funded projects, such as the B3Africa biobanking project, to produce learning and communications materials for future generations of international exposome researchers.

Register to attend the symposium 

View the programme of the symposium