The overall goal of our Early Life Exposures Program (ELEP) Optional Component is to enable investigators in diverse disciplines and all career stages to train, participate, and excel in research focusing on human health and diseases that have their origins at early stages of life. As a result, the ELEP will foster a new generation of scientists trained in the complexities of translational research involving pregnant women and their offspring from infancy through childhood and adolescence. The premise of our ELEP is that pre-emption of diseases and prevention of their later life consequences will improve health and quality of life by reducing disease burden and its devastating economic impact on individuals and society. Thus ELEP will align with the CTSA Lifespan Domain Task Force through objectives focused on early life exposures. Within the CCTSI framework, the ELEP will integrate a large number of existing and well-funded research programs in maternal-placental-fetal and pediatric medicine, each with multiple investigators and trainees. The ELEP will support new multidisciplinary collaborations among basic/pre-clinical, clinical, and translational scientists at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus (CU-AMC) and in the CCTSI community. The ELEP will provide research and training infrastructure to facilitate early life exposures research and longitudinal lifespan/life course research. The ELEP will provide an innovative platform for prospective, observational and experimental approaches as a national model for CTSA centers engaged in lifespan research in order to promote collaborations among CTSA hubs. These goals will be achieved by the following Specific Aims: Aim 1: Expand and streamline our broad-based, multidisciplinary organizational structure to promote Early Life Exposures clinical-translational research in the CCTSI. Aim 2: Provide coordinated research support and development. Aim 3: Foster new education and training opportunities in Early Life Exposures research. By implementing these aims over the next 5 years, we will enhance the ability of our numerous outstanding scientists and team-based research programs, and attract and train new investigators, in child-maternal health research to have a significant and sustained impact on human health and development, with the ultimate goal of translating discoveries into interventional studies and clinical trials very early in life with high potential to improve quality of life across the lifespan.