ABSTRACT
The main body of the toxicogenomic literature, primarily consisting of review papers written by leaders and innovators in the field, conveys the sentiment shared at multiple scientific meetings and in hundreds of laboratories the world: namely, toxicogenomics has a big and bright future. Consequently, risk assessment is a fairly controversial area that could benefit substantially from toxicogenomic data. Many toxicants have genotoxic properties that can lead to tumorogenesis, and “toxicogenomicists” of the future should find such techniques useful adjuncts to transcriptomics that provide data to enhance and support risk assessment decisions. With the rapid advances in the Human Genome Project, the role of genetic polymorphisms in drug metabolism will become an important adjunct for the explanation of drug toxicity and interactions. Single nucleotide polymorphism analysis is one of the most important components of toxicogenomics and the technology will develop rapidly.
