Genomics: an in vitro toxicology point of view

Genomics, and in particular its derived discipline, toxicogenomics, are rapidly developing technologies, which permit studies on the impact of chemicals and drugs on gene expression in particular biological systems. Enormous amounts of data will be provided in the context of mechanistic and predictive toxicology from the use of the DNA microarray approach for the simultaneous analysis of the expression pattern of multiple genes. The high-throughput requirement of these approaches necessitate in vitro cell culture systems. This article will give a short overview of the areas of ECVAM's research in which this technology will initially be applied.