
IJERPH Webinar | DNA Methylation Changes in Response to Environmental Exposure and Lifestyle
11 July 2022, 11:00 (CEST)
DNA methylation, Surrogate biomarkers, Environmental exposure, Lifestyle, Molecular Epidemiology
Welcome from the Chair
5th IJERPH Webinar
DNA Methylation Changes in Response to Environmental Exposure and Lifestyle
In the last few years, a tremendous amount of research papers have highlighted the association between blood DNA methylation levels and various exposure to risk factors, cognitive and functional outcomes, diseases, and longevity. Blood DNA methylation can accurately predict an individual state of health and is a robust surrogate biomarker of different exposures during the life course.
In this seminar event, four of the most talented and productive young researchers in the field will talk about recent advances in molecular epidemiology and discuss open research questions, analytical approaches, opportunities and challenges for future studies, and how to translate the results into public health policies.
Date: 11 July 2022
Time: 11:00 am CEST | 5:00 am EDT | 5:00 pm CST Asia
Webinar ID: 895 5840 7900
Webinar Secretariat: ijerph.webinar@mdpi.com
Chair

Laboratory of Biostatistics, Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, Italy
Dr Giovanni Fiorito is Assistant Professor (University of Sassari, Italy), since 2019. He has a background in Mathematics and a PhD in Complex Systems for Life Sciences from the University of Turin, Italy. He has an honorary position at the School of Public Health, Imperial College, London, as Visiting Researcher, and at the Trinity College, Dublin, as Visiting Professor. He is interested in the study, evaluation, comparison, and development of mathematical and statistical methods for the analysis of multi-omic datasets in epidemiological studies and clinical research with the aim to identify novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. Recently he focused on ageing-related epigenetic modifications (epigenetic clocks and epigenetic drift) and the use of DNA methylation surrogates of exposures and risk factors for developing disease-specific risk profiles.
Invited Speakers

Precision Medicine, School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Monash University, Australia
Dr Pierre-Antoine Dugué is a Senior Research Fellow (Precision Medicine, Monash University), since 2019. He holds an MSc in Statistics, and a PhD (cervical cancer epidemiology and screening) from the Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Since he moved to Australia, most of his research has focused on the association between DNA methylation, lifestyle factors and the risk of cancer. He currently leads the Molecular Epidemiology team, which aims to better understand and predict cancer risk and mortality through the integration of lifestyle, clinical and -omic data. https://www.monash.edu/medicine/scs/researchers/pierre-antoine-dugue.

Centre for Genomic and Experimental Medicine, Institute of Genetics and Cancer, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Dr Robert Hillary is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Molecular Epidemiology based at the Institute of Genetics and Cancer, University of Edinburgh. He undertook his PhD with Dr Riccardo Marioni in Edinburgh working on multi-omics and dementia (Wellcome PhD in Translational Neuroscience). Most recently, he has been awarded independent fellowships to continue his work on applying multi-omics approaches to study the role of proteins and post-translational modification in complex disease states.

School of Public Health, Department of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
Dr Evangelos Handakas is a Research Fellow in Computational Epidemiology in the Department of Medicine, in the School of Public Health at Imperial London College. His research focuses on investigating the relationship between multiple environmental exposures and human health and he has been involved in over 20 European Union scientific projects and consortia. His scientific research is on applied statistical methods in epidemiological studies and statistical, bioinformatics and biological and interpretive analysis of data.

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York
Elena Colicino is an Associate Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She develops and applies novel statistical methods and machine learning approaches to molecular and environmental health data in order to assess the effect of multiple toxic chemicals on human health throughout the life course. In her spare time, she promotes gender diversity in the R-software community by promoting and participating in R-ladies events and meet-ups.
Webinar Content

Program
Speaker/Presentation |
Time in CEST |
Dr. Giovanni Fiorito Chair Introduction |
11:00 - 11:05 am |
Dr. Pierre-Antoine Dugué DNA Methylation Markers of Lifestyle Exposures and Cancer Risk |
11:05 - 11:25 am |
Q&A |
11:25 - 11:30 am |
Dr. Robert Hillary Bridging the Epigenome and Proteome to Refine Biomarker Discovery |
11:30 - 11:50 am |
Q&A |
11:50 - 11:55 am |
Dr. Evangelos Chandakas Molecular Mediators of the Association Between Child Obesity and Mental Health |
11:55 am - 12:15 pm |
Q&A |
12:15 - 12:20 pm |
Dr. Elena Colicino DNA Methylation-Based Biomarkers of Environmental Exposures for Human Population Studies: Opportunities and Challenges for Large Population Studies |
12:20 - 12:40 pm |
Q&A |
12:40 - 12:45 pm |
Final Q&A Session |
12:45 - 1:00 pm |
Closing of Webinar |
1:00 pm |