Toxicogenomic applications in risk assessment at Health Canada

Based on increasing use of mechanistic information in risk assessment, Health Canada's (HC) Task Force on Scientific Risk Assessment established a working group to review and report on the application of toxicogenomics across HC's risk assessment bureaus. The aim was to review current applications and needs for toxicogenomics at HC, to document existing challenges and to promote consistent/coherent risk assessments that consider toxicogenomics. Overall, HC foresees a role for toxicogenomics in risk assessment. To date, select bureaus have incorporated toxicogenomic data, primarily in weight of evidence approaches, to support mode of action analysis. Future efforts to foster networks for increasing expertise/capacity around toxicogenomic data interpretation were viewed as valuable endeavours, and continued support of research to advance applications was recommended.