Some of what we know about the health effects of exposure to chemicals from food, drugs, and the environment come from studies of occupational, inadvertent, or accident-related exposures. When there is not enough human data, scientists rely on animal data to assess risk from chemical exposure and make health and safety decisions. However, humans and animals can respond differently to chemicals, including the types of adverse effects experienced and the dosages at which they occur. Scientists in the field of toxicogenomics are using new technologies to study the effects of chemicals. For example, in response to a particular chemical exposure, they can study gene expression ("transcriptomics"), proteins ("proteomics") and metabolites ("metabolomics"), and they can also look at how individual and species differences in the underlying DNA sequence itself can result in different responses to the environment. Based on a workshop held in August 2004, this report explores how toxicogenomics could enhance scientists' ability to make connections between data from experimental animal studies and human health.

Considers strategies for communicating toxicogenomic information to the public and other non-expert audiences, specifically addressing the communication of some key social, ethical, and legal issues related to toxicogenomics and addressing how information related to the social implications of toxicogenomics might be perceived by nonexperts.

The latest tools for investigating stress response in organisms, genomic technologies provide great insight into how different organisms respond to environmental conditions. However, their usefulness needs to be tested, verified, and codified. Genomic Approaches for Cross-Species Extrapolation in Toxicology provides a balanced discussion drawn from

Some of what we know about the health effects of exposure to chemicals from food, drugs, and the environment come from studies of occupational, inadvertent, or accident-related exposures. When there is not enough human data, scientists rely on animal data to assess risk from chemical exposure and make health and safety decisions. However, humans and animals can respond differently to chemicals, including the types of adverse effects experienced and the dosages at which they occur. Scientists in the field of toxicogenomics are using new technologies to study the effects of chemicals. For example, in response to a particular chemical exposure, they can study gene expression ("transcriptomics"), proteins ("proteomics") and metabolites ("metabolomics"), and they can also look at how individual and species differences in the underlying DNA sequence itself can result in different responses to the environment. Based on a workshop held in August 2004, this report explores how toxicogenomics could enhance scientists' ability to make connections between data from experimental animal studies and human health.

The recognized and unknown risks associated with the ever-increasing number of pollutants in our environment presents a serious threat to us all. This poses a pressing need for a breakthrough in toxicity-assessment technology because the currently available methods are neither feasible nor sufficient to provide the timely information needed for regulatory decision-making and technology development to eliminate these threats. This study developed a novel, feasible and cost-effective quantitative toxicogenomics-based toxicity assessment platform for high-throughput and effective chemical hazardous identification and environmental toxicity monitoring. We systematically optimized the assay platform, evaluated its robustness and performance, validated the assay output and demonstrated its wide applications. Compared with other main stream "omics' technologies, the proposed method greatly improves the feasibility and cost effectiveness as a result of its much simpler, faster, and more reliable assay procedures. Furthermore, it provides multi-dimensional transcriptional level effect information with a temporal dimension and therefore can more accurately reflect the chemical-induced time-dependent cell responses with higher sensitivity and specificity. We demonstrated that information-rich toxicogenomics data are powerful for evaluating toxic effects, understanding toxicity mechanisms, and obtaining pollutant-specific molecular fingerprints for compound /sample classification and identification. One of the main challenges in applying toxicogenomics for environmental monitoring is the lack of a quantitative method to convert the toxicogenomic information into a readily usable and transferable format that can be incorporated into ecological risk assessment and regulatory framework. We proposed a new transcriptional effect level index (TELI) that exhibited a dose-response relationship and allowed for linking the transcriptional level effects to conventional toxicity endpoints. In addition, we pioneered quantitative molecule toxicity modeling within the context of toxicogenomics and paved the road for further mixture toxicity identification and prediction. Cross-species comparison and extrapolation is another key aspect related to predictive and mechanistic toxicity assessment to overcome the limitation of data generation ability. We have compared three different species for variety of compounds and demonstrated the possibility of cross-species extrapolation with stress-response pathway ensemble based toxicity assessment. Finally, we demonstrated successful application of the novel assay for mechanistic CECs toxicity assessment, whole effluent toxicity monitoring and risk-based water treatment technologies efficacy evaluation.

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 waysâ€"an effort requiring funding, interagency coordination, and data management strategies.

Xenobiotics in Chemical Carcinogenesis: Translational Aspects in Toxicology covers the translational toxicology of xenobiotics substances in carcinogenesis by explaining the toxicokinetic and toxicodynamic, toxicogenomic, biotransformation, and resistance mechanisms in the human body. The book begins with a historical review and link to future prospects for chemical carcinogenesis. It discusses major environmental xenobiotics and their risks in inducing cancer, along with content on toxic xenobiotics and their routes of exposure in humans, the role of xenobiotic metabolism in carcinogenesis, and the toxicokinetic and toxicodynamic of xenobiotics in cancer development. Lastly, the book explores current achievements such as using toxicogenomics for predicting the carcinogenicity of xenobiotic substances and the challenges posed by carcinogenic xenobiotic substances when examining preventive methods, diagnosis, and the development of anticancer drugs for specific toxicants. Covers the exposure and transmission of various toxic xenobiotics substances, including nanomaterials, to humans and their interaction with specific tissues in precipitating the development of cancers Unravels the toxicokinetic and toxicodynamic processes of toxic xenobiotics in bioaccumulation Examines the genetic aberrations in cancer genomes by genetic-environmental interactions in carcinogenesis Explains the biotransformation mechanisms of toxic xenobiotics by gut microbes in humans