Measuring Exposures on an Omic Scale
Explore concepts, techniques, and data analysis methods used in studies of the exposome in this two-day intensive boot camp.
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Course Description
The Exposome Boot Camp is a two-day intensive boot camp of seminars and hands-on analytical sessions to provide an overview of concepts, techniques, and data analysis methods used in studies of the exposome.
- Understand the concept of the exposome framework, its relevance to environmental health research, and its complementarity to the genome.
- Learn how to conceive and design exposome studies, integrating omics data to capture lifelong chemical exposures.
- Gain hands-on experience with the tools and techniques for measuring endogenous and exogenous chemical exposures on an omic scale.
- Practice data handling, cleaning, and basic analysis of exposomics data, including pathway analysis, data visualization, and interpretation techniques.
To contact support for this course, please email [email protected].
Course Prerequisites
- Each participant must have an introductory background in statistics.
- Each participant is required to have a personal laptop. If you would like to participate in the asynchronous, hands-on data labs offered by the Boot Camp, you will need to have R downloaded and installed as all lab sessions will be done on your personal laptop. R is available for free download and installation on Mac, PC, and Linux devices.
- The Boot Camp will provide lab tutorials with data sets in R, therefore we recommend participants have a basic understanding of this platform prior to attending the Boot Camp to get the most out of lab sessions. R knowledge is not required if you do not plan to participate in lab sessions. If you have not used this platform before, step through the tutorials outlined below so you have the basic skills needed for Boot Camp success.
What You Will Learn
There are many challenges to capturing the complexity of exposures in an individual across the lifetime and their potential health effects. Traditionally, environmental health studies have focused on assessing risks related to a single exposure at a time, yet in reality we are constantly exposed to multiple exposures at the same time. To advance environmental health research and positively impact human health through recommendations and policy, we need to incorporate omics data that capture all chemical species detectable in human plasma over the life course. The exposome offers this framework and can be viewed as the environmental complement of the genome.
This two-day intensive boot camp integrates the principle concepts of exposomics and the untargeted approaches of measuring endogenous and exogenous chemical exposures on an omic scale as we step through the tools and techniques currently available to analyze the exposome. Led by a team of expert scientists in the rapidly growing field of exposomics, the boot camp will integrate seminar lectures with hands-on computer lab sessions to put concepts into practice. Emphasis will be given to leveraging existing resources from ongoing studies and initiating new investigations. The afternoon lab sessions will provide an opportunity to work hands-on with real data. Participants will learn and practice data handling, cleaning, and basic analysis of exposomics data.
By the end of the workshop, participants will be familiar with the following topics:
- Principles of exposomics
- Concept ideation and study design
- Laboratory methods and instrumentation platforms for analysis
- Data extraction and cleaning with emphasis on peaks and feature tables
- Pathway data analysis and identification databases
- Data visualization and network interpretation
- Study design advantages and pitfalls
- Emerging exposomic topics and laboratory platforms
Instructors
Gary Miller, PhD, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Vice Dean of Research Strategy and Innovation, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Dr. Miller was the founding Director of the HERCULES Center at Emory University, the first exposome-based research center in the U.S. and authored the first book on the topic, The Exposome: A Primer published by Elsevier. His laboratory at Columbia focuses on environmental drivers of neurodegeneration, using several experimental models from cultured neurons and C. elegans to mice and human studies.
See external site for full list of instructors.