Encyclopedia of Distances

Abstract

It has been nearly a decade since the publication of this Encyclopedia's second edition, and in that time toxicology has continued to advance its scientific foundations. The "omics" revolution, along with advances in systems biology, epigenetics, bioinformatics, and computational toxicology are driving toxicology from a discipline dependent upon whole animal testing to one increasingly comfortable with in vitro and in silico methodologies. This change is taking place both as a humane alternative and as a more practical and cost effective way to deal with the vast number of chemicals for which toxicity data is nonexistent. Adverse outcome pathways are being explored as a means to determine how a direct initiating event at the molecular level can result in an adverse outcome in the biological organism. The 2007 National Research Council publication of Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and a Strategy was a seminal event that outlined new technologies in molecular biology and toxicology, and called for a "paradigm shift" to stimulate innovative approaches to testing. The Committee (on Toxicity Testing and Assessment of Environmental Agents) responsible for the report envisioned "a new toxicity-testing system that evaluates biologically significant perturbations in key toxicity pathways by using new methods in computational biology and a comprehensive array of in vitro tests based on human biology." On July 11, 2013, the European Union's cosmetic regulation, prohibiting animal testing in the cosmetics industry, came into effect.