Page 63 - Veterinary Toxicology, Basic and Clinical Principles, 3rd Edition

30 SECTION | I General

VetBooks.ir organ system, new molecular markers are being identified shape the cellular response. It describes more than 56,000
candidates that protein-protein interactions will contain
on a regular basis (Gupta, 2014). The challenge for
more than 29,000 previously unknown coassociation.
toxicologists is to consider from among this array of
opportunities which biomarkers are sufficiently well They identified 442 protein communities associated with
validated with regard to their linkage to diseases and more than 2000 disease connotations placing numerous
sufficiently reasonable in cost to warrant their use in candidate disease given with a cellular framework. The
exposure response studies. This includes consideration fundamental biology reported in this paper should
of the new and highly sophisticated genomic tools. There serve as both a cautionary message that disease processes
is a special challenge in designing validation studies to are extraordinarily complex and as a challenge for
make certain that the experimental design is directed future scientists to build bridges from this world of basic
toward identifying specific disease-related endpoints or biology to the observations of spontaneously occurring
toxicant related effects rather than merely being another, disease and toxicant-induced diseases in individuals and
albeit more sophisticated, marker of nonspecific toxic populations.
effects. A serious issue in many previous validation stud- A related message is the increasing need for all scien-
ies has been the use of a single high exposure level and a tists, including veterinary toxicologists to develop their
few short-term observation times. Such studies are unable communication skills. These communication skills are
to evaluate exposure-related changes in biomarkers and needed for multiple kinds of interactions, between scien-
may not be able to identify toxicant specific changes tists in diverse disciplines, between basic scientists and
(Gupta, 2014). clinicians, and between medical and other scientists and
Three reports prepared by Committees of the National the general public. The development of improved commu-
Research Council provide insight into how some indivi- nications will require that the traditional discipline based
duals envision the future of toxicity testing. The first silos of most scientific disciplines and academic institu-
NRC Report (2007a) addresses the application of toxico- tions will need to come down. Ultimately, students who
genomic technologies in predictive toxicology and risk desire to become true professionals rather than mere trade
assessment. The second NRC Report (2007b) provides a persons will demand it. Moreover, many members of the
strategy and vision for toxicity testing in the 21st century. public are already becoming better informed on scientific
The third and most recent NRC report (2017) provides a and medical matters and are developing high expectations
discussion of the multiple ways in which information of professionals who provide services to them or, on
acquired using new technologies can influence evaluation a broader scale, to society at large.
of health risks. I encourage veterinary toxicologists, In closing, let me comment briefly on the role of elec-
whether they are in training or experienced, to carefully tronic media as a source of information on toxicity and
read these reports. I view both of the reports as aspira- health issues, indeed, on essentially any matter in which
tional. In my opinion, both committees would have you want to find information. It is important to recognize
benefitted from more participation from veterinarians and that a Google search will yield an astonishing amount
human medical doctors who understand the complexity of of information. In some cases this will include original
disease processes and toxicoses to counter-balance the peer-reviewed papers published on-line in highly
views of molecular and cell biologists who are used to reputable journals. In other cases, careful examination
focusing on the microlevel and some mathematically ori- will reveal the paper was published on-line in a journal
ented scientists who may overstate the role of mathemati- with a deceptively similar title to one of the highly
cal models in predicting disease outcomes related to respected journals. In some cases material presented in a
exposure to toxic agents. The concept of systems biology highly authoritative manner will not have a clearly related
has come to the forefront in recent years. In my view, the authorship, indeed, it could have been prepared as a new
concept of a systems approach to normal biology and dis- form of advertising. My bottom line recommendation is
ease processes has been a fundamental concept undergird- for users of the electronic media to carefully screen all
ing both veterinary medicine and human medicine for of the material and give the highest degree of credibility to
more than a century. peer-reviewed material such as this text edited by Gupta.
To illustrate the extent to which our current knowl-
edge of biological systems and diseases processes has
advanced, I will cite a single recent reference, Huttlin CONCLUDING REMARKS AND FUTURE
et al. (2017). This paper with 25 coauthors describes
DIRECTIONS
BioPlex 2.0 (Biophysical Interactions of ORFeome-
derived complexes). BioPlex 2.0 is grounded in recogni- Veterinary toxicology is a multifaceted hybrid that draws
tion that the physiology of a cell can be viewed as the on and contributes to the veterinary medical profession,
product of thousands of proteins existing in concert to the scientific field of toxicology, and, broadly, to medical