How early-life environmental exposures affect biological aging in kids and teens
Official title: Early-life environmental exposure mixtures and biological age acceleration in children and adolescents: susceptibility, potential interactions and underlying mechanisms
Funded at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai · NIH-11247923 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project looks at whether chemical exposures before birth, together with diet and body weight, speed up biological aging during childhood and adolescence.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (New York, United States) |
| Project start | March 5, 2024 |
| Project end | December 31, 2028 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $518,142 |
| NIH project number | 5R01ES035773-03 |
| Project ID | NIH-11247923 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal participants are pregnant people and their children who can be followed from pregnancy through childhood and into adolescence, especially those with recorded prenatal exposure measurements.
✕Less likely to help
Adults without prenatal exposure information or people whose health concerns are unrelated to early-life environmental exposures and aging markers are unlikely to benefit directly from participating.
What this research studies
From a parent's view, researchers will follow children whose mothers had measurements of environmental chemicals during pregnancy and will track those children through adolescence. The team will measure biological aging markers (like telomere length) and combine genetic, metabolic, and other molecular data using a multi-omics approach. They will also compare how diet and obesity interact with prenatal chemical exposures to influence aging markers. The study uses repeated sample collection and long-term follow-up to see how early exposures relate to changes over time.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could identify prenatal exposures and modifiable factors that increase early biological aging and point to prevention strategies to protect long-term health.
How similar studies have gone: Smaller studies have linked prenatal endocrine-disrupting chemical exposures to shorter telomeres, but this larger, long-term multi-omics study is a novel and more comprehensive approach.
Where this research is happening
-
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
New York, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Valvi, Damaskini — Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Study coordinator: Valvi, Damaskini
Related research
Other NIH-funded projects on the same topics.
-
Prenatal and early-life chemical exposures linked to faster cellular aging in children and adolescents
Researchers will look at whether prenatal and early-life mixtures of chemicals and factors like diet and obesity speed up cellular aging in children and teens.
-
Heart organoids reveal how environmental chemicals affect heart function
A small research project uses lab-grown human heart tissue to study how environmental chemicals may change heart biology and function, aiming to identify early signs of heart problems.
-
Environmental exposures and inflammation in blood stem cells
Many people exposed to pollution and environmental disasters may develop blood disorders due to inflammation and DNA changes in blood stem cells.
-
Multimethod detection of brain micro- and nanoplastics in Alzheimer’s disease
Researchers will look for tiny plastic particles in human brains and see how they relate to Alzheimer’s disease and neighborhood-level environmental risk.
-
ECHO Measurement Core: Tools to track environmental exposures and child health
A large NIH project at Northwestern builds better, culturally sensitive measurements to understand how early environmental exposures affect child health and development.
-
S3E: A kid-friendly game to learn about indoor environmental health
A mobile game helps middle-schoolers learn about everyday indoor environmental exposures and how to reduce health risks like asthma and lead poisoning.
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.