Background

    Humans are exposed to many chemicals in the form of drugs but also through the environment. Collectively these are known as xenobiotics. In the European Union there are in the region of 30,000 chemicals in current production and there is the potential for humans to be exposed to a significant number of these. In the case of drugs adverse consequences are commonly known as side effects but for chemicals adverse consequences of exposure are usually simply referred to as toxicity.

    In order to understand the risk to human health of drug and chemical exposure it is necessary to understand how these xenobiotics may affect normal cellular processes and so lead to toxicological consequence.

     In the last decade and a half the advent of high throughput genomic screens has led to the possibility gaining a much greater breadth of understanding of the effect of xenobiotics in biological systems. Furthermore there has been interest in the possibility of using the output of these genomic assays as a signature of xenobiotic exposure, and thus as a test procedure for the recognition of toxicological hazard. In this context it has been anticipated that these genomic assays may be utilised to reduce the number of animals used in toxicological testing. In addition these genomic assays allow the potential elucidation of the effect of individual genetics on the response the xenobiotics. This has two important potential impacts, first better extrapolation of data toxicological gained in non-human models (refinement) and prediction of adverse (unexpected) reactions to drug exposure in humans.

     We apply genomic methods at several levels of gene regulation in order to understand the effects of xenobiotics. These are transcription, translation and translational control by small RNA species called microRNAs.  

Group Aims