Emerging technologies for accelerated toxicity evaluation of potential drug candidates

The current trend in the pharmaceutical industry is to shorten the timelines for all aspects of drug discovery. Although several well-established methods are used for routine toxicological evaluation, new, innovative tools are being designed, developed and implemented that promise to deliver significant advantages. These include technologies that take advantage of large-scale mining of the genome and proteome, such as microarrays and two-dimensional electrophoresis, and methods that enhance the molecular detection of specific proteins and mRNAs, such as mass spectroscopy and branched DNA. These tools, combined with better in vitro model systems, will become instrumental in answering questions about the molecular mechanisms of toxicity, as well as offering productive and effective means for higher-throughput toxicity assessment.