Chemical databases for environmental health and clinical research

Toxicol Lett. 2009 Apr 10;186(1):62-5. doi: 10.1016/j.toxlet.2008.10.003. Epub 2008 Oct 18.

Abstract

The increasing number of publicly available biological databases reflects the evolving need for managing and evaluating abundant and complex data in biological, clinical and computational research. Currently there are over 1000 biologically relevant databases in the public domain with varied content and diverse approaches to capturing and presenting data. This review summarizes the comparatively small niche of sophisticated databases and other resources that aim to enhance understanding of chemicals and their biological actions. The databases reviewed include 1 that emphasizes environmental chemicals and 9 that emphasize drugs and small molecules. These databases and their associated resources are incrementally strengthening the expanding field of toxicogenomics-based research by providing centralized sources of manually and computationally curated datasets and highly sophisticated tools for the meta-analysis of continually increasing environmental chemical, drug and small-molecule datasets.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Databases, Factual*
  • Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions*
  • Environmental Exposure
  • Environmental Health*
  • Environmental Medicine
  • Environmental Pollutants / toxicity*
  • Humans
  • Toxicogenetics*

Substances

  • Environmental Pollutants