The SISSA start-up CyNexo will be taking part as one of three SMEs in the recently launched LongITools European research project, which is a five-year project with a total grant of €11,997,448 from the EU’s Horizon 2020 R&D programme, and one of nine projects in the newly created ‘European Human Exposome Network’.

LongITools is a project studying the interactions between the environment, lifestyle and health in determining the risks of chronic cardiovascular and metabolic disease. Led by the University of Oulu in Finland, the consortium’s research  will build on life-course data from 11 million European citizens to study cardio-metabolic health trajectories from birth to old age.

Lifestyle and living environments have changed. Environmental exposures, including air and noise pollution, the built environment and an individual’s psychological, social and lifestyle determinants, interplay with genetic factors leading to increasing the risk of developing cardiovascular and metabolic non-communicable diseases, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart diseases and atherosclerosis. The LongITools project will study and measure how longitudinal exposure to these environmental factors contribute to the risk of developing such diseases across the life-course. The project will take an exposome or holistic-based approach, linking individual and societal health to the environment to define the disease pathways and the points at which to best intervene during the life-course to reduce the risks.

This ambitious project includes partners from 15 research institutions and 3 small and medium-sized enterprises across eight European countries with expertise in epidemiology, genetics, epigenetics, metabolomics, lifestyle, mathematics, economics, policy making and sensor technology.

The project is also one of nine projects in the newly created ‘European Human Exposome Network’ and the launch of this network will take place in Brussels on 11th February.