Landscape of current toxicity databases and database standards.

Having readily available historical information for modeling toxicity has become important throughout the various stages of research and development. The high cost of late-phase attrition and recent international regulatory legislations have made even more acute the need to be able to mine the fragmented data and information available across diverse databases. In addition, the general trend to accelerate regulatory processes globally makes the effective use of existing data an imperative. To achieve efficient screening, develop profiles and gain the ability to cross reference, databases must be interoperated to allow data exchange and integration. Several database standards and controlled vocabulary initiatives have been used in the development of toxicity data models to transform the current landscape. This review describes the major databases of toxicological information now available, and provides a simple example of standardization that demonstrates the benefits of a toxicity database containing such qualified data.