Oncogene and Transgenics Correlates of Cancer Risk Assessments

The data, the information, and even the overarching knowledge necessary for risk assessments of economically important environmental carcinogens come, for the most part, from the applied biological disciplines, e. g. , toxicology, epidemiology, biostatistics, etc. The more fundamental biological disciplines, e. g. , biochemistry, cell biology, molecular biology, molecular genetics of cancer, etc. , have enormous but unrealized potential to improve current cancer risk assessment methods. The objective of this advanced research workshop ARW was to advance the state of the art of cancer risk assessment methods by identifying potential short and long term contributions to such methods from the more fundamental disciplines. Attention was paid to short and long term contributions from research advances in the biochemistry and physiology of oncogenes (oncogenes research) and in the construction and utilization of transgenic animals (transgenics research). In the last 20 years, researchers in the fundamental biological disciplines, i. e. , biochemists, geneticists, molecular and cell biologists, etc. , have, inter alia, advanced spectacularly our understanding of the nature of neoplastic diseases. Their phenomenal progress is the combined result of both advances and refinements of the techniques available to them and of new fundamental discoveries. Among the latter the most significant are the discoveries of oncogenes and of the feasibility of creating transgenic animals, i. e. , of transferring well defined and expressible genes from the cells of one species of organisms to the embryonic cells of another.

Proceedings of a NATO ARW held in Vouliagmeni Beach, Attiki, Greece, October 7-11, 1991.

Springer Book Archives

Cancer Risk Assessments: An Overview.- Pharmacodynamic Models for Cancer Risk Assessment.- Predictive Value for Cancer Risk Assessment of Cell-and Tissue-Specific Formation of Carcinogen-DNA Adducts.- Studies on the Role of Protein Kinase C in Multistage Carcinogenesis and Their Relevance to Risk Extrapolation.- Oncogene Activation and Human Cancer.- Genetics of Hepatocarcinogenesis in Mouse and Man.- Protein Kinase C in Carcinogenesis: Comparative Expression of Oncogenes and Protein Kinase C in Rhabdomyosarcoma Models.- Oncogenes and Human Cancers.- 'In Vivo' Model Systems to Study ras Oncogene Involvement in Carcinogenesis.- K-ras Oncogene Activation in Neoplasias of Patients with Familial Adenomatous Polyposis or Kidney Transplant.- An Overview of Transgenic Mice as Future Models of Human Diseases, In Drug Development, And for Genotoxicity and Carcinogenesis Studies.- Regulating Gene Expression in Mammalian Cell Culture and Transgenic Mice with Yeast Gal4/Uas Control Elements.- Genes and Oncogenes of the ras Superfamily.- Oncogenic Transgenic Mice in the Study of Carcinogenesis.- Leukemia, Lymphoma, Embryonic Carcinoma and Hepatoma Induced in Transgenic Rabbits by the c-myc Oncogene Fused with Immunoglobulin Enhancers.- An Overview of the Outstanding Issues in the Risk Assessment of Methylene Chloride.- Cancer Dose-Response Modeling and Methylene Chloride.- Risk Assessments for Benzene-Induced Leukemia - A Review.- Comparative Metabolism and Genotoxicity Data on Benzene: Their Role in Cancer Risk Assessment.- Dose-Response Relationships for Benzene: Human and Experimental Carcinogenicity Data.- A Threshold for Benzene Leukemogenesis.- Some Points for Discussion from the Oncogene Workshop.- Concluding Remarks, Findings and Recommendations.