Past Advances and Future Challenges

11 Chemical and Biological Terrorism 11.12Transgenic Animals and Plants 

In this chapter, we discuss some of these issues and the likely course of events that may unfold in the decades ahead. 

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The overview report will identify recent advances and current challenges in fundamental understanding of the basic science, and it will explore the impact beyond the chemical sciences that these advances have had in the past. It will also explore the possibilities for such impact in the future, recognizing that such developments are frequently serendipitous. Issues to be addressed include ... 

Despite of challenges such as handling a tsunami of data or evaluation for regulatory purposes, toxicogenomics and pathway analysis have made headway over the past decade and are poised to advance further into the future. A broader understanding at the molecular, pathway, and network level would remain the pillars on which we expect to build continued success in deciphering chemical toxicity, and its successful application in clinical practice would help to ensure future patients in drug therapy judiciously monitored and relieved of undue harm. 

We are in a new era of phytochemical and health research where past knowledge and experience of chemical, biochemical, nntritional, and clinical research is allied to the new generation of molecular biology and trinomic research. Over the next decade we will witness scientific advances as well as raise new questions and challenges for future scientists to answer. 

No matter what the future of Rx-to-OTC switch will be, one thing for sure is that future switches will be driven by science and an evidence-based medicine approach as in the past. Even though most of the OTC products are for acute use, there are already a few products such as hair growth products and smoking cessation product for chronic use. The desire of the baby boomers to maintain their vigor and the desire of healthcare providers to control cost favors preventive OTC products, which will continue to challenge the chronic use barrier. The switch of these kinds of products will be enhanced by the advance of diagnostic products (324). 

This then is the challenge for the future. There will be a need for increasingly advanced lubricants and hence lubricant additives, they will be required to operate in harsher conditions, more effectively than in the past, and there will be no allowances made in the approval process for adverse health or environmental effects. Society has decided that it wants to have its cake and eat it, more is required from less and it... 

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