Mapping Heavy Metal Exposure in the Exposome Era: Toxicological and Health Perspectives

Dear Colleagues,

Heavy metals such as cadmium, arsenic, lead, and vanadium are widespread environmental pollutants that pose serious risks to human health. Found in air, water, food, and consumer products, these metals have been linked to a wide range of adverse outcomes affecting multiple organ systems. Variations and shifts in the molecular form of metals in the environment and food and consumer products add additional complexity to the assessment of their toxicological effects. While their toxic potential is well recognized, many aspects of heavy metal exposure—including low-dose effects, mixture toxicity, and long-term impacts—remain insufficiently understood.

In the exposome era, where the totality of environmental exposures across the lifespan is increasingly seen as critical to health outcomes, there is a pressing need to map and analyze heavy metal exposures in more integrated and comprehensive ways. Climate change, industrial innovation, and emerging technologies continue to shift exposure pathways and patterns, raising new questions about risk—particularly for vulnerable populations such as infants, children, the elderly, and occupationally exposed groups.

This Special Issue aims to consolidate cutting-edge research that advances our understanding of heavy metal exposure and its biological, toxicological, and health consequences. We welcome interdisciplinary contributions that apply novel methodologies, including exposomics, high-throughput toxicology, and systems biology, to uncover mechanisms of action and inform risk assessment, regulation, and prevention strategies.

We invite submissions on topics including, but not limited to, the following:

• Characterization and biomonitoring of heavy metal exposure across environmental (e.g., air, water, soil, food) and biological (e.g., saliva, blood, urine, tissues) matrices
• Mechanistic studies on the toxicological effects of heavy metals across organ systems (e.g., digestive, respiratory, neurological, renal, cardiovascular, immune, reproductive)
• Epidemiological studies linking heavy metal exposure to acute and chronic health outcomes
• Systems biology, omics, and computational approaches to dissect heavy-metal-related toxicity
• Use of exposome frameworks to evaluate cumulative and combined exposures to metals and other toxicants
• Strategies for exposure reduction, environmental remediation, and health-risk mitigation
• Disparities in exposure burden and health effects among sensitive and high-risk populations

This Special Issue aims to support a deeper, systems-level understanding of the impact of heavy metals on human health and catalyze progress in exposure science, environmental justice, and precision public health.

Dr. Xiaojia He
Dr. Matthew Smith
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Toxics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• heavy metals
• human health
• risk assessment
• exposure characterization
• exposome
• system toxicology
• vulnerable populations
• toxicological mechanisms