Key challenges for toxicologists in the 21st century.

The application of genomic technology to toxicology (toxicogenomics) has allowed the simultaneous identification of modified gene expression in response to a toxicant to be established for thousands of mammalian genes. This, together with the development of proteomics, metabonomics and our increasing understanding of individual human polymorphisms, will enable toxicologists in the next century to identify those individuals at particular risk from specific toxins, pesticides and pharmaceutical drugs. However, these new opportunities will prove fruitless unless toxicologists address some of the major issues that presently confront their discipline. If anything, the new technologies impose a greater demand on toxicologists to exercise expert judgement on the meaning of their data, and to apply 'common sense' when balancing risks and benefits.