Session Speaker

The Evolution of Toxicogenomics in Drug Discovery and Development
Fokunang, CN, Kechia, FA, Ngameni B, Ngadjui BT

Genomics has an important role in two areas of the drug development process, the predictive toxicology and mechanism-based risk assessment. Predictive toxicology investigates the potential for a compound to be toxic. The goal of toxicology is the assessment of possible risk to man. An emerging technology with the potential to have a major impact on risk assessment is toxicogenomics. Toxicogenomics is a powerful tool for compound classification, for mechanistic studies, and for the detection of toxicity markers. This emerging discipline is still unknown in the Cameroon scientific discipline. Toxicogenomics has contributed significantly in the extrapolation of findings across species and increases predictability. By developing databases of expression profiles for a wide variety of toxic compounds and toxic models it has been possible to create statistical and computational methods which provide an indication of toxic potential of a drug from the gene transcript profile it elicits in the in vitro and in vivo systems. Gene expression is central to many responses to xenobiotics, thus genomic approaches contributes to mechanistic toxicology studies. The examination of changes in gene expression in cells and tissues in response to drugs makes it possible to generate hypotheses as to the underlying mechanism and in some cases it is possible to evaluate hypothesis of toxic mechanism. This review aims at providing an overview of the potential of toxicogenomics, which can no longer be regarded as a new technology, in drug development. There is also the need for sensitization of the importance of the emerging discipline into the research platform in Cameroon. The overview highlights many possibilities for toxicogenomics including technology platforms, data interpretation, and regulatory perspective.