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Table 2 Key scientific and policy challenges identified as part of the EXPOsOMICS project.

From: EXPOsOMICS: final policy workshop and stakeholder consultation

Type of Challenge

Challenge

Scientific

-Availability of accurate and inexpensive sensors

-Low statistical power (low levels of exposure and small omic changes)

-Multi-city designs are needed for contrast, but complicate inference

-Validation in larger, longer-term exposed populations and in different settings and across omics platforms

-Collection and storage of data as well as data access and ownership

-Limited understanding of biological pathways and their interaction

-Limited capacity to look at historical exposures

-Large variation in bioinformatics analyses

-Validation of omics approaches (both technical validation and biological validation) and a lack of a platform for data sharing

-Matching omics measurements with functionalities (annotation of unknown biomarkers, differentiating exposures from biological responses, investigation of mixtures and interactions between agents)

-Understanding mechanisms for biological plausibility and causality assessment

-Cost of omics

Policy

-Current regulatory standards and policy not yet adapted to the use of EXPOsOMICS evidence

-Conceptual framework for integrating the contribution of exposome or external exposure data into models of disease

-Communication of research results

-Demonstrate the utility of the exposome approach to funders and policy makers