The eighth annual US DOHAD meeting: promising approaches in epigenetics research of early life exposures.

Abstract

The U.S. Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) meeting is an annual conference of primarily U.S. scientists who study early life programming of health and disease. The eighth annual symposium, entitled "Exploring Translational DOHaD Science: From Cells to Communities" was held at the Rizzo Conference Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, from October 14 to 16, 2024. The meeting was organized by US-DOHaD President Danielle Christifano and Vice President Kaela Varberg, and other Society Council Members. This year's meeting had record attendance, with 158 attendees from diverse disciplines, and featured 10 keynote speakers, 11 platform talks, and 84 poster presentations. Four major topics were covered: 1) Early nutrition and developmental outcomes, 2) Prenatal origins of child health, 3) Developmental impacts of toxicant exposures, and 4) Metabolic origins of health. Overall, the presented research highlighted the value of studying epigenetic effects of dietary and toxic exposures early in life. Various strategies emerged to address challenges facing the field, such as harnessing the power of nationwide longitudinal birth cohorts, new methods to integrate epigenetic and environmental data across various levels, and the emerging potential of organoids to identify the causal impact of early life exposures.