Postgenomic Intersections: Epistemology and Ethics for the Exposome and Microbiome

Postgenomic Intersections: Epistemology and Ethics for the Exposome and Microbiome 

This workshop aims at a more comprehensive understanding of intersections in contemporary biomedicine: intersections between scientific, ethical, and epistemic elements in rapidly evolving postgenomics and intersections that emerge as fields such as exposomics and microbiomics are increasingly integrated. These intersections are transforming our understanding of health and disease, but also raise fundamental questions about the nature of integration, reductionism, and the limits of biomedicine.

Postgenomics emerged in the wake of the completion of the Human Genome Project, in 2003, as a series of attempts to increase attention to the combined role of inherited and environmental factors and develop new, integrative approaches to the study of health and disease. Among them new fields have emerged, including exposomics, which seeks to capture the sum of the exposures an individual encounters throughout their life at biological, chemical, physical and social levels. Its ambition to integrate several and ultimately all environmental exposures is exemplified by The Human Exposome Project, announced as a Moonshot initiative in 2025 to include (also) microorganisms and the microbiome. Yet until recently, the human microbiome – our community of resident microorganisms – has been outside the scope of these efforts, and its integration presents several exciting opportunities but raises several concerns as well. 

While there is a flourishing literature on the methodological, conceptual, ethical and societal assumptions and shortcomings of exposomics and microbiomics, the encounter of the exposome and the microbiome brings unique opportunities to identify and address common epistemic and ethical issues, as well as to ask what happens at their convergence. This is why this workshop aims to bring together researchers from philosophical, sociological, and scientific backgrounds to explore the challenges and opportunities arising at the intersection of microbiomics and exposomics.

We invite submissions from philosophers, ethicists, historians, as well as researchers working with the microbiome and exposome research addressing the following questions and themes: 

• Can microbiomics be integrated into exposomics and vice versa? 
• What are the conceptual and methodological obstacles to overcome and what could be gained from integrative approaches in postgenomics?
• What do we lose and what do we gain with integration ethically and epistemologically, at the intersection of the exposome and microbiome and other postgenomic fields? 
• Are there emerging ethical and epistemic concerns emerging with the integration of postgenomic fields? 
• What should we make of key concepts such as exposure, the environment, health, and disease with the increasing integration of omics data? 
• The goal of the workshop is to start a discussion and foster a deeper understanding of the complex relationships between microbiomics and exposomics, and to identify areas for future research and collaboration.

Practical information

• Submit your 250 words abstract here: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/Xnj3th9B1J
• CfA opens: 23 October 2025
• CfA closes: 30 November 2025
• Organising committee: Thomas Bonnin, Stefano Canali, Abigail Nieves Delgado, Aline Potiron, Federica Russo, Caspar Safarlou, Elian Schure