Jennifer F. Medlin

Abstract

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The ToxChip, a DNA microarray chip, allows the monitoring of the expression levels of thousands of different genes at a time, thereby condensing months of painstaking laboratory tasks into a day's work. For toxicology researchers in particular, this tool is important because it promises a more effective way to identify environmental hazards and their effects on DNA. The ToxChip, developed by NIEHS scientists J. Carl Barrett, Cynthia Afshari, and Emile F. Nuwaysir, could transform the way toxicologists approach environmental problems.

The ToxChip may reduce the dependence on animals for completing toxicological studies. It may also enable researchers to lower toxicant dosages in studies to a level that more realistically depicts typical human exposure levels. Microarrays may help researchers explore the connection between acute and chronic toxicity, as well as identify presumed secondary effects, by looking at the relationship between the length of exposure and the gene expression profiles generated by that toxicant. Perhaps most important, the ToxChip allows scientists to analyze up to 10,000 genes in one day.