Structure Activity Relationships

Structure activity relationship (SAR) methods have become a legitimate and useful part of toxicology over the last fifteen years or so. These methods are various forms of mathematical or statistical models which seek to predict the adverse biological effects of chemicals based on their structure. The prediction may be of either a qualitative (carcinogen/noncarcinogen) or quantitative (LD₅₀) nature, with the second group usually being denoted as QSAR (quantitative structure activity relationship) models. It should be obvious at the onset that the basic techniques utilized to construct such models are those which were discussed earlier in chapters VIII (mathematical modeling) and IX (reduction of dimensionality methods).