This blog is being shared under the SOT Secretary’s name as part of their official duties and should not be interpreted as their personal or professional opinions.
This blog was written by Talia Sager.
At the 2026 SOT Poster Session “Tobacco, ENDS, and Smoking-Related Toxicology I,” I spoke with Xiaojia He, PhD, UL Research Institutes’ Chemical Insights, about the Center for Toxicology and Human Health’s latest research, presented in the poster titled “Multi-omics Profiling Reveals Sex-Specific Oral Health Disruptions Associated with Vaping.” Notably, a blue ribbon was displayed next to the poster signifying the publication on which it was based, with Dr. He as the lead author, was honored with the Paper of the Year Award by the SOT Molecular and Systems Biology Specialty Section (MSBSS) for the group’s prior vaping research led by Christa Wright, PhD. This study provides an in-depth look at how vaping affects oral health and how those effects differ between males and females.
Oral diseases are among the world’s most common chronic conditions; yet, little is known about how men and women experience different oral health impacts from vaping. To address this, the researchers conducted a secondary analysis on high-resolution, multi-omics data from a prior Chemical Insights study cohort of 73 adults, comparing vapers and non-vapers using microbiome sequencing, metabolomics, proteomics, and volatile chemical measurements from exhaled emissions.
The findings reveal that vaping induces a shared core biological disruption across sexes, affecting metabolism, innate immunity, and pathways linked to periodontal disease. However, each sex displays distinct molecular responses. Females showed stronger immune and inflammatory activation, including elevated proteins tied to neutrophil responses. Males, on the other hand, exhibited intensified metabolic stress and aldehyde detoxification activity, accompanied by increased exhaled aldehydes. One notable discovery was arginine depletion in both males and females, a shift that removes a key protective metabolite in the mouth and may heighten vulnerability to oral diseases.
Taken together, the insights shared in this poster have the potential to support more personalized approaches to oral health assessment and vaping-related risk communication.
This blog reports on the poster titled “Multi-omics Profiling Reveals Sex-Specific Oral Health Disruptions Associated with Vaping” that was shared during the 2026 SOT Annual Meeting and ToxExpo.
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