Current Protocols in Toxicology

Toxicological research is driven by the need to understand and assess the human and ecological risks of exposure to chemicals and other toxicants as well as by interest in using toxic agents to elucidate basic biological and pathobiological processes. The level of research activity in this field is higher, the rate of change in knowledge more rapid, and interest in applying scientific information to societally important issues is greater than ever before. These are exciting and challenging times to be working in toxicology. The ongoing ferment builds on the extraordinary advances being made in the understanding of biological systems at the molecular level. This fundamental knowledge provides the opportunity for greatly enhanced insight into how chemicals and other stressors may damage biological structures and processes, influence the rate of biological repair, and lead to reversible or irreversible diseases or to a return to health. Society increasingly calls on the scientific community for the knowledge needed both to reevaluate the health hazards of existing products and technologies and to evaluate the prospective hazards of new ones. Such information is used to develop guidelines and regulations designed to ensure that these new products and technologies do not harm people or the environment. Acquiring sound, reproducible scientific data that can be integrated with existing information to advance the knowledge of toxicants and living systems requires rigorous adherence to the scientific method. This means intelligent, thoughtful individuals identifying important needs, formulating testable hypotheses, designing experiments to test them, meticulously conducting these experiments, carefully reviewing and interpreting it in the peer-reviewed literature. Current Protocols in Toxicology is a clear and well-documented compendium of the most important methods in the field?proven approaches developed by leading researchers?for the benefit of other experimentalists, from students to seasoned investigators. Since toxicology by its nature is multidisciplinary, other titles in the Current Protocols series may also provide relevant methods. Although review of the literature cited for each procedure can give added insight into the underlying theory and breadth of applications, the protocols have been carefully designed to provide clear, step-by-step descriptions that can easily be followed even by the relatively inexperienced.Regular updates to Current Protocols in Toxicology manual will help ensure an awareness of changes in previously documented methods and of methods newly developed. Use of these protocols will avoid unnecessary duplication of effort in development and validation when the methods are applied without modification, and will speed up the development of more refined methods that will further advance the field of toxicology and, in turn, may have a place in future updates.Roger O. McClellanChemical Industry of ToxicologyResearch Triangle Park, North Carolina