Search

Historically, identifying carcinogens has relied primarily on tumor studies in rodents, which require enormous resources in both money and time. In silico models have been developed for predicting rodent carcinogens but have not yet found general regulatory acceptance, in part due to the lack of a generally accepted protocol for performing such an assessment as well as limitations in predictive performance and scope. There remains a need for additional, improved in silico carcinogenicity models, especially ones that are more human-relevant, for use in research and regulatory decision-making. As part of an international effort to develop in silico toxicological protocols, a consortium of toxicologists, computational scientists, and regulatory scientists across several industries and governmental agencies evaluated the extent to which in silico models exist for each of the recently defined 10 key characteristics (KCs) of carcinogens. This position paper summarizes the current status of in silico tools for the assessment of each KC and identifies the data gaps that need to be addressed before a comprehensive in silico carcinogenicity protocol can be developed for regulatory use.

Toxicology data are generated on large scales by toxicogenomic studies and high-throughput screening (HTS) programmes, and on smaller scales by traditional methods. Both big and small data have value for elucidating toxicological mechanisms and pathways that are perturbed by chemical stressors. In addition, years of investigations comprise a wealth of knowledge as reported in the literature that is also used to interpret new data, though knowledge is not often captured in traditional databases. With the big data era, computer automation to analyse and interpret datasets is needed, which requires aggregation of data and knowledge from all available sources. This chapter reviews ongoing efforts to aggregate toxicological knowledge in a knowledge base, based on the Adverse Outcome Pathways framework, and provides examples of data integration and inferential analysis for use in (predictive) toxicology.