The Salmonella Mutagenicity Assay: The Stethoscope of Genetic Toxicology for the 21st Century

Objectives: According to the 2007 National Research Council report Toxicology for the Twenty-First Century, modern methods (e.g., "omics," in vitro assays, high-throughput testing, computational methods) will lead to the emergence of a new approach to toxicology. The Salmonella mammalian microsome mutagenicity assay has been central to the field of genetic toxicology since the 1970s. Here we document the paradigm shifts engendered by the assay, the validation and applications of the assay, and how the assay is a model for future in vitro toxicology assays. Data sources: We searched PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Knowledge using key words relevant to the Salmonella assay and additional genotoxicity assays. Data extraction: We merged the citations, removing duplicates, and categorized the papers by year and topic. Data synthesis: The Salmonella assay led to two paradigm shifts: that some carcinogens were mutagens and that some environmental samples (e.g., air, water, soil, food, combustion emissions) were mutagenic. Although there are > 10,000 publications on the Salmonella assay, covering tens of thousands of agents, data on even more agents probably exist in unpublished form, largely as proprietary studies by industry. The Salmonella assay is a model for the development of 21st century in vitro toxicology assays in terms of the establishment of standard procedures, ability to test various agents, transferability across laboratories, validation and testing, and structure-activity analysis. Conclusions: Similar to a stethoscope as a first-line, inexpensive tool in medicine, the Salmonella assay can serve a similar, indispensable role in the foreseeable future of 21st century toxicology

Conceptualising researchers’ risks and synthesising strategies for engaging with those risks: articulating an agenda for apprehending scholars’ precarious positions

This chapter introduces this edited volume by articulating an agenda for apprehending scholars’ multiple and multifaceted precarious positions that constitute a springboard for the subsequent chapters’ assorted engagements with the proposition of researchers at risk. This agenda is framed in terms of a dual focus on presenting selected conceptualisations of researchers’ risks, and of synthesising particular strategies that researchers have demonstrated to be effective in engaging with those risks. These conceptualisations and strategies constitute in turn empirically grounded manifestations of the precarity, jeopardy and uncertainty that accompany certain aspects of contemporary researchers’ work. The chapter also outlines the clustering of the subsequent chapters into four parts, each directed at a different form of research risk: researchers’ identities; researchers’ professions; subject matter; and conflict-laden locations