A comprehensive platform to enable high-throughput sample preparation and multidimensional separation for exposomics research

“麻烦”包括一生中暴露于环境的全部情况。环境暴露被广泛认为在慢性病中起着不可或缺的作用，但许多疾病与疾病的关系充其量也只是模糊的定义。在化学和化学生物学中，非遗传风险因素表现为生活方式、饮食、辐射、压力和暴露于环境污染物引起的内源性和外源性化学物质。与基因组相比，基因组是可变的，因此需要可靠地测量随时间演变的暴露。迫切需要新的分析工具，以便能够进行频繁、具有成本效益和微创的接触测量，最适合从少量血液（例如干血斑）中获得。然而，在这一领域进一步研究的障碍是巨大的：大多数环境毒物的身份及其在引起慢性疾病中的作用是未知的; c.一滴血液中90%的未知环境污染物无法使用现有的分析平台检测到。提出了一种流量调制器来应对这些挑战;支持环境和分析化学的新研究;并增加研究和HQP培训方面的跨学科合作，同时使成本高昂的研究能够在内部进行。所要求的基础设施是一个综合系统，包括一个热解吸入口，以便能够对少量血液的大量样本进行污染物分析;一个流量调节器，以便能够加强对复杂的环境和生物混合物的分离;以及一个自动进样器，以便能够对样本进行无人值守的分析。该设备将能够使用干血点（DBS）进行频繁、非侵入性和具有成本效益的测量。该仪器还将服务于双重目的：第一，使分析化学，分离科学和环境健康方面的突破性研究成为可能;第二，支持加拿大下一代环境分析化学家的培训。

The "exposome" encompasses the totality of environmental exposure during the course of a lifetime. Environmental exposures are widely acknowledged to play an integral role in chronic disease, but many exposure-disease associations remain ambiguously defined at best. In chemistry and chemical biology, nongenetic risk factors manifest as endogenous and exogenous chemicals that result from lifestyle, diet, radiation, stress and exposure to environmental pollutants. In contrast with the genome, the exposome is variable and thus requires reliable measurements of exposures that evolve over time. There is an urgent need for new analytical tools that will enable frequent, cost-effective and minimally invasive exposure measurements, most appropriately obtained from small quantities of blood (e.g. dried blood spots). However, the obstacles to further research in this field are formidable: The identities of most environmental toxicants and their role in causing chronic disease are unknown; and c. 90% of unknown environmental pollutants in a drop of blood are not detectable using existing analytical platforms. A flow modulator is proposed to address these challenges; support novel research in environmental and analytical chemistry; and increase interdisciplinary collaboration in research and HQP training, while making otherwise cost-prohibitive research accessible inhouse. The requested infrastructure is an integrated system that consists of a thermal desorption inlet to enable pollutant analysis in large numbers of samples of small quantities of blood; a flow modulator to enable enhanced separation of complex environmental and biological mixtures; and an autosampler to enable unattended analysis of samples. The device will enable frequent, non-invasive and cost effective measurements using dried blood spots (DBS). The instrumentation will also serve the dual purposes of first, enabling groundbreaking research in analytical chemistry, separation science and environmental health; and secondly, support training for the next generation of environmental analytical chemists in Canada.