Public Health Chair: A Course on the Exposome in Rémy Slama’s Teaching
The course on the external causes and conditions of disease and health, taught by Professor Rémy Slama in the Public Health Chair at the Collège de France, began on March 31, 2022. The curriculum includes a session on the exposome scheduled for May 25. In a Q&A, Professor Slama answers three questions to help us understand the focus of this course and invites you to join.
To attend the class
May 25, 2022, 10:00–11:30 a.m., Maurice
Halbwachs–Marcelin Berthelot Auditorium.
The lectures and seminars are free and open to the public; no prior registration is required. They are available for replay on the Collège de France website.
Rémy Slama
A research director at Inserm, he heads the Thematic Institute of Public Health and the environmental epidemiology team at the Institute for the Advancement of Biosciences (Inserm, CNRS, University of Grenoble-Alpes). He holds a Ph.D. in epidemiology from Paris-Sud University, is a graduate of École Polytechnique, and is an agricultural engineer. He chaired the scientific advisory board for the national research program on endocrine disruptors and co-authored a report for the European Parliament on the effects and regulation of these substances. He is co-author of some 100 scientific publications and the book *Le Mal du dehors: The Influence of the Environment on Health* (Quae, 2022). He received the Tony McMichael Award from the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology.
“Environmental health research focuses on the more distant causes of diseases—the causes of causes of death, so to speak. These take the form of physical, chemical, behavioral, social, and, to this day, infectious factors, although the latter no longer represent the primary contribution. All of this constitutes the exposome, a concept scientists have been exploring for the past fifteen years or so. It refers to the totality of environmental exposures we are subjected to from conception through the end of life.” Rémy Slama.
This quote is taken from his exclusive interview “The Fight Against Climate Change Is an Opportunity to Improve Health,” available on the Collège de France website along with his course schedule and biography.
3 Questions for Rémy Slama, Environmental Epidemiologist
Can you define the concept of the exposome for us?
The exposome refers to all factors originating primarily outside the body. This includes physical factors (noise, temperature), chemical factors (metals, bisphenols, etc.), biological factors (viruses, bacteria, etc.), psychosocial factors, and even behavioral factors (diet).
Why is it important to collectively embrace this concept?
Colossal efforts have been made over the past decades to characterize the genome (the entire genetic code), which is the counterpart to the exposome in terms of inherited determinants of health. These efforts have led to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying certain diseases. They have also demonstrated, through family studies, that for many chronic diseases, genetic polymorphisms account for only a limited portion of the variability in risk within the population. This leaves ample room for external factors—for example, in the case of breast cancer, the most common cancer in Europe in terms of incidence. It is therefore time to strengthen research efforts on these external and behavioral determinants, grouped under the concept of the exposome.
What do you expect from this specific course within your curriculum?
A little over 15 years after the birth of the exposome concept, and about a decade after the launch of the first major European studies on the subject—including the Helix project—the course will take stock of what the exposome and environmental health research can reasonably promise in terms of knowledge. This course will address the still numerous methodological challenges—statistical, particularly related to the “curse of dimensionality,” and metrological.
It will also be an opportunity for Clémence Fillol of Santé publique France to present a summary of the results of the national biomonitoring survey conducted by Santé publique France, which can be seen as the first major characterization of the chemical exposome of the French population. Such results are essential for making this exposome visible and, together with research on the environmental burden of disease, for prioritizing health risks of environmental origin.
The Chair of Public Health
Established in partnership with Santé publique France, the Collège de France’s Chair of Public Health is designed to promote excellence in research and intellectual debate at the highest level on public health issues, and in particular to raise awareness of contemporary challenges—in France and around the world—among the medical and scientific communities, policymakers, and the general public, by inviting a different distinguished figure to hold the chair each year.
