Translational Toxicology

Abstract

Translational toxicology is the division of toxicology that deals with identifying the toxic effects of a candidate drug in the in vitro and in vivo model systems for the rational therapeutic world. It has evolved from a nascent stage to a separate entity through the ages. From time to time, many tragic events have happened after the approval of a therapeutic drug like thalidomide in the early 1960s to COX-2 inhibitors like celecoxib and rofecoxib in the twenty-first century. Even though the battery of toxicity tests both in vitro and in vivo, required by drug regulating agencies like the Food and Drug Administration in the US and the European Medicines Agency in European countries, have served the purpose of identifying a candidate drug's adverse effects, to some extent, they have fell short of the desired toxicity predictability. The extrapolation of animal study to human clinical trials remains a challenge for the modern medicine. Advances in science in the recent past have equipped toxicologists with several tools like ‘humanized animal model’ and toxicity biomarker analysis to predict the safety of a drug in humans. Translational toxicology is thus a constantly evolving field of science aiming at a healthier world.