Environmental ‘determinants’ in precision medicine
- Submission status
- Open
- Submission deadline
Precision medicine has traditionally focused on the molecular and genetic basis of disease, aiming to tailor prevention and treatment strategies to individual biological profiles. However, it is now increasingly recognized that environmental exposures—including chemical agents, dietary factors, physical stressors, and microbial environments—profoundly influence disease onset, progression, and therapeutic response. The dynamic interplay between genome and environment is particularly relevant in complex, multifactorial diseases, where gene-environment and epigenome-environment interactions modulate risk and clinical heterogeneity.
This Collection of npj Genomic Medicine will focus on the integration of environmental determinants into precision medicine frameworks, with an emphasis on how exposures affect molecular pathways and influence health outcomes through genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic, and other omic mechanisms. We welcome contributions that characterize environmental influences on gene regulation and function, define molecular biomarkers of exposure and response, or employ multi-omic and computational approaches to dissect individual variability in susceptibility and treatment efficacy.
Of particular interest are studies that explore the molecular consequences of defined environmental exposures, such as pollutants and xenobiotics, and their interaction with inherited or somatic genomic features. We are also interested in translational research that connects molecular signatures of environmental exposure with clinical phenotypes, therapeutic responses, or disease trajectories.
This Collection aims to advance the understanding of how modifiable environmental factors can be systematically incorporated into genomic medicine. By emphasizing mechanistic insights and clinically relevant applications, the collection seeks to support a more comprehensive and actionable model of precision health.
Editors
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Nicola Normanno, MD
Istituto Romagnolo per lo Studio dei Tumori (IRST) “Dino Amadori” IRCCS, Meldola (FC), Italy
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Paola Ulivi, PhD
Biosciences Laboratory, IRCCS Istituto Romagnolo per lo studio del Tumori “Dino Amadori” (IRST), Meldola (FC), Italy
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Milena Urbini, PhD
Biosciences Laboratory, IRCCS Istituto Romagnolo per lo studio del Tumori “Dino Amadori” (IRST), Meldola (FC), Italy
The Collection will publish original research Articles, Reviews, Perspectives and Comments (full details on content types can be found here). Papers will be published in npj Genomic Medicine as soon as they are accepted and then collected together and promoted on the Collection homepage. All Guest Edited Collections are associated with a call for papers and are managed by one or more of our Editorial Board Members and the journal's Editors.
This Collection welcomes submissions from all authors – and not by invitation only – on the condition that the manuscripts fall within the scope of the Collection and of npj Genomic Medicine more generally. See our editorial process page for more details.
All submissions are subject to the same peer review process and editorial standards as regular npj Genomic Medicine articles, including the journal’s policy on competing interests. The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions, which they handle through the peer-review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests. See our Collections guidelines for more details.
This Collection is not supported by sponsorship.
