This project allows a more detailed understanding of the interactions between environmental exposures and internal biological processes.
The Department of Public Health at UANDES School of Medicine is working on a proposal to change the paradigm of the way of conceptualizing health issues and translational research, specifically to clinical practice and public policies (TR3 and TR4 translation levels), to contribute to a greater impact on society and strengthen the effectiveness of interventions in real life.
The first product of this work is the recent publication in the prestigious journal Frontiers on the conceptual model of this proposal and the use of technology for its development. The publication was led by Drs. Cinthya Urquidi and Patricia Matus, and is titled "The Chilean exposome-based system for ecosystems (CHiESS): a framework for national data integration and analytics platform."
"CHiESS is a theoretical model for approaching health research based on the exposome. The exposome complements the traditional genome-centered research paradigm by considering all environmental exposures throughout a person's life and their complex interactions," explains Dr. Urquidi.
The external exposome includes environmental and contextual factors such as pollutants and lifestyle shared by individuals, and the internal exposome is the biological responses and internal processes such as metabolism and the immune system. In this way, exposome research allows a more detailed understanding of the interactions between environmental exposures and internal biological processes, contributing to the development of more effective strategies for disease prevention and public health.
To achieve this, CHiESS aims to develop a dynamic informatics platform using artificial intelligence tools, the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain, among others, and to leverage available administrative data routinely collected by national agencies, clinical registries and biobanks.
Dr. Urquidi states that "CHiESS is an adaptable and scalable model that hopes to contribute to the exposomics research collaboration network worldwide, support international and national sustainable development objectives, contribute to improving the health of the population, as well as to be a platform for supporting research, contributing to the translation and evaluation of the impact of public policies".