Applications of Toxicogenomic Technologies to Predictive Toxicology and Risk Assessment

The new field of toxicogenomics presents a potentially powerful set of tools to better understand the health effects of exposures to toxicants in the environment. At the request of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Research Council assembled a committee to identify the benefits of toxicogenomics, the challenges to achieving them, and potential approaches to overcoming such challenges. The report concludes that realizing the potential of toxicogenomics to improve public health decisions will require a concerted effort to generate data, make use of existing data, and study data in new ways—an effort requiring funding, interagency coordination, and data management strategies. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary 1 Introduction 2 Toxicogenomic Technologies 3 Experimental Design and Data Analysis 4 Application to Exposure Assessment 5 Application to Hazard Screening 6 Application to Analyzing Variation in Human Susceptibility 7 Application to the Study of Mechanisms of Action 8 Other Potential Applications of Toxicogenomic Technologies to Risk Assessment 9 Validation 10 Sample and Data Collection and Analysis 11 Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues 12 Conclusions and Recommendations References Appendix A: Biographic Information on the Committee on Applications of Toxicogenomic Technologies to Predictive Toxicology Appendix B: Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment for Toxicogenomics Appendix C: Overview of Risk Assessment