Roel Vermeulen is Professor of Environmental Epidemiology and Exposome Science at Utrecht University and the director of the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS) at Utrecht University and the UMC Utrecht. He holds a professor position at the Julius Center, Department Public Health Healthcare Innovation and Medical Humanities (UMC Utrecht) and a Visiting Professorship at Imperial College London, UK.

Research focus: environmental risk assessment

His scientific research focuses on environmental risk factors for non-communicable diseases with a strong emphasis on integrating epidemiology, high quality exposure assessment, and molecular biology into multidisciplinary investigations.

Exposome

One of his main research areas is the exploration of new methods for quantifying the external and internal exposome. The exposome concept refers to all environmental factors that we humans are exposed to on a daily basis: what we eat, the air we breathe, our social interactions and lifestyle choices such as smoking and exercising. Interacting with the genome, the exposome defines individual health at different stages throughout the life course, including foetal life. Researchers in the field of the exposome are trying to capture everything to understand which, how, in what quantities, and in what circumstances environmental drivers have an effect on our health.