Biomarkers in environmental carcinogenesis research: Striving for a new momentum

During the past 30 years biomarker-based approaches have been employed in the area of environmental carcinogenesis research with the expectation of refining exposure assessment, providing tools for the early detection of disease-related changes and their association with environmental and genetic factors and, thus, facilitating improved understanding of the etiology of human cancer. Great advances have been achieved in the development of analytical methodologies for the measurement of various types of biomarkers, including chemical-specific biomarkers of exposure, as well as in the characterisation of genetic variation in many genes of relevance to carcinogenesis and the assessment of its impact on cancer risk. However, despite the enormous effort invested in these investigations, the progress achieved in terms of the identification of environmental or genetic factors which affect substantially cancer risk among the general population is relatively limited. It is suggested that progress towards this goal may be facilitated by a concerted effort to promote thorough validation of chemical-specific biomarkers of exposure for which adequate analytical methodologies are available, the development of reliable and high-throughput phenotypic assays of biomarkers of susceptibility and the formulation of a systems biology approach to the analysis of the modulation of biomarkers by environmental and genetic factors.