الفهرس 
Basic Molecular BiologyOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Molecular biology is a new branch of biological sciences, with novel laboratory techniques that are being progressively applied into biomedical and clinical research and, furthermore, into medical practice. The advances in molecular biology have provided new tools and the techniques of molecular biology and genetics have revolutionized the research opportunities in toxicology and epidemiology, with the hope that they can reflect specific exposures to environmental agents and/or predict disease risks in individuals. So, among the many approaches that have been used to improve the epidemiological protocol, the one proposed by Perera and Weinstein (1982). They suggested the incorporation of sensitive laboratory techniques of molecular biology with traditional epidemiological surveys. Thus, the new field of molecular epidemiology was born and the biological endpoints used in these studies became known as biomarkers In addition, the unprecedented advances in molecular biology have resulted in a dramatic increase in knowledge about gene structure and function, genetic variation, and global functional gene expression. These advances have led to a new sub-discipline of toxicology: “toxicogenomics”. The applications of biomarkers in occupational and environmental medicine can be described along two lines. Firstly, new technology improves our understanding of causality by allowing a more direct and accurate measure of exposure and outcome. Secondly, molecular epidemiology in occupational health enhances the process of quantitative risk assessment.