Every day, we encounter thousands of chemicals in the air, food and products we use. Some can damage our health by altering how our cells behave, contributing to cancers, fertility problems and other diseases. Yet for the majority of chemicals currently in use, their effects on human health remain poorly understood. 

“Conventional toxicology testing is too slow, too distant from human biology, and rarely tells us how harm arises,” says Andrew, “New technologies have the capacity to reveal things that simply weren’t possible to see before. They can inspire us to think differently about biological systems and ultimately have much broader applications. My team at the LMS will create novel technologies to enable new insights into the effects of chemical exposures on human health.” 

Andrew’s team will develop technologies to read the molecular state of individual cells while also pinpointing their precise location within a tissue. This will allow them to build detailed maps of how particular chemical exposures alter our cells and tissues from the inside out, helping to reveal how damage arises and which cells are most vulnerable. 

They will investigate exposures including carcinogens, which can cause cancer; endocrine disruptors, which can interfere with the body’s hormones; and PFAS, a large group of long-lasting chemicals used in many consumer and industrial products. They will study their effects in tissues with different exposure patterns and disease outcomes, including the liver and reproductive tissues. 

The team will combine several types of information about individual cells, including changes to DNA and which genes are switched on or off, to understand how chemical exposures disrupt the normal function of tissues. They will complement this with technologies capable of testing large numbers of exposures, and explore organoids, which are laboratory-grown models that mimic some of the structure and function of human organs, as an alternative to animal models. 

Computational approaches will bring these different types of data together, helping the researchers understand how tissues change following exposure, identify vulnerable cells and ultimately predict the potential effects of chemicals that have not yet been studied. 

Ultimately, by mapping the effects of specific chemicals at high resolution, Andrew’s team hopes to generate evidence that can inform the regulation and removal of harmful compounds before they cause widespread disease. By linking the structure of a chemical to its biological effects, their work could also help inform the design of less harmful alternatives as well as designing chemotherapies with fewer side effects. 

The team also hopes to identify early cellular signs of tissue damage that could support the development of new diagnostic approaches, potentially helping to detect the effects of harmful exposures earlier. 

Andrew joins the LMS from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, USA, where he was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr Fei Chen. He was attracted to the LMS by its combination of scientific expertise, excellent facilities and collaborative approach to research. 

“The LMS has an incredible diversity of world-class research groups, in combination with excellent core facilities,” says Andrew. “The people here are engaged, creative and scientifically curious. These are values I care deeply about in my own group, but they also make the LMS a great place to work. I’m particularly excited by the focus on team science and research themes, and I’m looking forward to being part of this effort and working with colleagues across the institute.” 

Welcome to the LMS, Andrew!