September 14 – 15, 2006

In the last 30 years significant progress has been made on a number of exposures, for example, the linkages between lead exposures in gasoline and paint and cognitive deficits in children. While environmental health has made strides with a number of exposures, the field has now been challenged to focus on a broader array of exposures, and importantly, to better understand the linkages along the continuum from exposure to disease outcome.  Such linkages are needed to improve risk assessment, to increase the validity of epidemiology studies, to enable the identification of genetic and environmental interactions and to increase the utility of exposure information in clinical settings.  In addition to toxicity of a substance, factors such as the type of exposure, length of exposure, genetic polymorphisms, and age of an individual, determine whether an exposure will lead to a disease outcome. However, there are many types of exposures (e.g. low-level exposures, non-point sources, particle mixtures,) where we have inadequate information on fate and transport and the resulting environmental diseases.  In an effort to increase our knowledge and understanding of the interface between environmental agents and human disease, the Institute of Medicine’s Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine will conduct a two-day workshop titled From Exposure to Human Disease: Research Strategies to Address Current Challenges. The purpose of the workshop is to discuss the current state of knowledge along the exposure—disease continuum, the current exposure challenges for the future, and the research and policy strategies to inform the science. The workshop will draw from the scientific advances in genomics, proteomics, and biomarkers in order to discuss opportunities to provide insight into the exposure—disease linkages and build on increased knowledge in nutrition and stress research, and improved computer modeling to examine ways to make better linkages across the continuum. Finally, there will be discussion on how collaboration across research groups and federal agencies can provide new insight into the future of exposure science.