Information, bio-markers, disease

1. Information channels and
biomarkers of disease
Phyllis Illari and Federica Russo

2. Overview
Why ‘exposomics’?
In search of a concept of linking
The failure of traditional metaphysics
Revisiting the causal literature in the light of new
challenges
The prospects of an informational approach
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3. Why exposomics?
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4. Environmental
exposure and disease
Traditional
epidemiology
Molecular
epidemiology
Measurement at
molecular level
Identify biomarkers of
exposure, of early clinical
changes, of disease
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5. From GWAS to EWAS
Better understanding of disease mechanisms
Better prediction and health policy planning
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6. Challenges
We look for biomarkers of the process of evolution of the disease.
The meeting-in-the-middle methodology aims to match these up, to come to
understand how environmental exposure is linked to the disease.
We know a lot about the system, but a lot is still unknown.
We seek many small causes, with small effects, and large interaction effects.
We expect widely different factors to be causes, including e.g. social and chemical
factors.
Use of new omics technologies allows a comprehensive approach, but generates
vast amounts of data.
UPSHOT:
exposomics is looking for tiny, difficult-to-find causal links in the middle of a
mess!
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7. What is this linking?

8. What we want
Nail down
what linking is and
how we reason about it
Tensions: general but not vacuous
A thin and versatile metaphysics – but broadly realist.
A widely applicable, general metaphysics – but informative.
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9. TRADITIONAL METAPHYSICS FAIL
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11. Physical processes
Tied to description of processes in physics , only one type of
linking
Mechanisms
Give organization of parts and their interactions, not linking
Capacities, Powers, Dispositions
Give modal properties of some parts of mechanisms, not
linking
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12. Purely
physical
quantity

13. Physical processes
Tied to description of processes in physics , only one type of
linking
Mechanisms
Give organization of parts and their interactions, not linking
Capacities, Powers, Dispositions
Give modal properties of some parts of mechanisms, not
linking
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15. Physical processes
Tied to description of processes in physics , only one type of
linking
Mechanisms
Give organization of parts and their interactions, not linking
Capacities, Powers, Dispositions
Give modal properties of some parts of mechanisms, not
linking
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18. THE PROSPECTS OF AN
INFORMATIONAL APPROACH
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19. Traditional accounts of causal production seek:
Realism: what is causality?
Science-first: what does science say causality is?
Exposomics requires something:
fine-grained
very general to apply in multiple cases and to link profoundly
inhomogeneous causal factors
something that can exist and potentially be found in such a
mess of interaction
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20. Why information
Gives a way of describing reality, of any kind.
Information transmission can be tracked, measured,
described precisely.
The ‘secret connexion’ doesn’t have to be thick
Idea of information channels:
mechanisms are construed as information channels
reconcile new informational approach to successful existing
work on mechanisms
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21. SUM UP AND CONCLUDE
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22. Why information for exposomics?
Exposomics forces us to reconsider existing approaches to
causality:
shows the importance of understanding causal linking…
…while showing that existing accounts of linking fail.
Information as an answer is
real,
referenced in scientific practice,
general enough to apply,
fine-grained enough,
can exist and be found in a mess.
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