Organizers of an international effort to map the “human exposome”—the lifetime mix of environmental, chemical, biological and social exposures that can shape health—say new regional networks and policy partnerships are forming as the project prepares to brief researchers and journalists at the 2026 AAAS Annual Meeting in Phoenix.
Scientists involved with the Global Exposome Forum (GEF) say they are building an international collaboration around the “human exposome,” a research framework aimed at measuring the combined exposures people experience across the life course and linking them to disease risk.
A scientific session titled “How the human exposome will unlock better health and medicine,” described in Exposome Moonshot materials distributed via ScienceDaily and EurekAlert, is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. (MST) in Room West 105 of the Phoenix Convention Center. Organizers say the discussion will be moderated by the Financial Times and will update attendees on progress since an exposome “moonshot” meeting in Washington, D.C., in May 2025.
The organizers characterize the effort as comparable in ambition to the Human Genome Project, arguing that genetics explains a minority of disease risk while environmental and other non-genetic factors account for a larger share. Those percentages (10–20% for genes versus “at least 80%” for exposures) appear as estimates in the Exposome Moonshot news release materials, but the releases do not cite underlying epidemiological studies for those figures.
According to those same materials, GEF working groups and regional chapters are forming to combine technologies such as sensor-based monitoring, metabolomics and large-scale data analysis, with the stated aim of translating findings into public-health and regulatory decisions. The releases cite applications ranging from respiratory disease and neurocognitive outcomes to concerns over microplastics, pesticides and food additives.
In Africa, Exposome Moonshot materials say a meeting held on Dec. 1, 2025, in Pretoria brought together national and pan-African experts to assess a continent-wide exposome network, with briefings also provided to senior officials in South Africa’s Department of Science, Technology and Innovation. The materials add that participants agreed to engage with GEF working groups and that improving coordination of health-data reporting systems was identified as an early priority. A follow-up workshop is described as being scheduled for early December 2026, with the Science Diplomacy Capital for Africa (SDCfA)—a South Africa-based initiative backed by the country’s science and innovation institutions—indicating it is prepared to serve as a founding host.
The releases also describe policy-focused involvement by the International Network for Governmental Science Advice (INGSA), including a panel at the May 2025 Washington meeting and another session planned for April 29, 2026, during the Global Exposome Summit in Sitges, Spain.
Separately, UNESCO has publicly listed an event titled “Towards a Human Exposome–Cell Atlas,” held on Dec. 9, 2025, describing it as the launch of a UNESCO–Human Cell Atlas–Global Exposome Forum dialogue series to explore how environmental exposures shape biology at the cellular level. Exposome Moonshot materials state that a follow-up UNESCO meeting is expected on March 3, 2026, in Paris to prepare for a Memorandum of Understanding between UNESCO and GEF; no corresponding UNESCO posting for a March 3, 2026 session was located in the sources reviewed.
The Global Exposome Summit is scheduled for April 27–29, 2026, in Sitges (near Barcelona), according to the summit’s official website and GEF event listings, which describe it as a follow-up to the May 2025 Exposome Moonshot Forum.
At the AAAS session in Phoenix, panel organizer Prof. Thomas Hartung of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is quoted in the Exposome Moonshot materials as saying the group expects to announce three examples of institutional “buy-in” spanning national governments, scientific institutions and membership-based organizations.
