The role of Biomedical Infromatics in Exposome research

Biomedical informatics plays a major role in the advancement of exposome (defined as the complete set of exposures of an individual since conception) research providing tools and methods to effectively manage and analyse the information and data generated during these studies. Exposome research comprises a broad range of data sources some of which have been previously used in the biomedical informatics domain while some other such as those coming from the development of new sensors might be new. In this work we present three examples showing different aspects where biomedical informatics is either supporting or driving exposome research. Knowledge management and representation or potential use of microbiome data by life insurance industry as a mean to analyse risk represent examples of areas where biomedical informatics is supporting exposome research with its tools and methods. At the same time biomedical informatics could potentially lead exposome research in areas such as the study of the exposure to digital technologies and digital stimuli (the digital exposome).