ABSTRACT
The 21st-century toxicology paradigm, introduced nearly a decade ago, brought big data into toxicity testing. Toxicity pathways and signatures derived from high-content assays and molecular profiling provide mechanistic and predictive insights into the biological effects that toxicant exposure elicits in the body. Systems toxicology takes the holistic concept even further by combining standard toxicological endpoints, high-throughput profiling, large-scale knowledge curation, and biological network models to capture exposure effects at all levels of biological organization. This chapter introduces systems toxicology approaches that have aided in understanding the health effects of nanoparticle exposure and delineate their applicability in nanomedicine safety research with specific examples. It highlights the importance of the systems view for mechanistic understanding of the biological effects of diagnostics, drugs, and medical devices coupled with nanomaterials.
