Gary W. Miller

Edward V. Ohanian

Edward V. Ohanian, Ph.D., is recognized as the 2010 Arnold J. Lehman Award recipient for his contributions to risk assessment and regulation of chemical agents. He is the Director of the Health and Ecological Criteria Division at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (U.S. EPA) Office of Water (OW), and is responsible for conducting human and ecological risk assessments of national and international importance. His expertise, experience, and broad knowledge have helped to shape science policy in U.S. EPA’s OW and across the Agency at large. He serves as mediator and the voice of reason in resolving contentious issues of scientific interpretation.

Dr. Ohanian demonstrates superior scientific judgment in addressing critical areas of water contamination. He helped to guide U.S. EPA through the highly contentious and sometime vitriolic debates on a veritable who’s who of drinking water contaminants and issues including lead, fluoride, chromium, arsenic, and perchlorate to name just a few. His judgment and calm, reasoned advice have been instrumental in guiding senior managers, including the Administrators, on these and other issues throughout the years.

His influence is also evident outside of U.S. EPA. His input is valued on the world stage in WHO Drinking-Water Guidelines Committees. His conclusions and advice are accepted as authoritative U.S. EPA positions. He chairs the U.S. EPA Risk Assessment Forum, where difficult risk assessments and toxicology problems are addressed, and science policy is formulated. As co-founder of the Federal-State Toxicology and Risk Analysis Committee, he has been instrumental in fostering partnership to improve risk analysis methods. He also chairs the Health Advisory Board of NSF International, which is responsible for setting safe levels for direct and indirect drinking water additives.

Dr. Ohanian is well published, credible in his work, forceful yet polite in his arguments, and reasoned and patient in his leadership. He is also purposeful, determined, and untiring in his efforts to incorporate the best toxicology into risk assessments. He has advanced the field of risk assessment though innovative thinking and principled risk assessment practice. The SOT Awards Committee is pleased to announce,
Dr. Ohanian as the recipient of the 2010 Arnold J. Lehman Award.

The Honorable David Price, United States House of Representatives Serving the 4th District of North Carolina

Harihara M. Mehendale

Harihara M. Mehendale, Ph.D., ATS, the Kitty Degree Endowed Chair of Toxicology, College of Pharmacy at University of Louisiana at Monroe, Monroe, Louisiana, is the recipient of the 2010 Distinguished Toxicology Scholar Award.

After several years at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences as a visiting fellow then staff fellow, Dr. Mehendale began a career spanning 35 years as an independent investigator. Seminal contributions in pulmonary, hepatic, and renal toxicology are hallmarks of his achievements in biomedical research. Perhaps Dr. Mehendale’s most novel insight is the key role of stimulation of tissue repair in the ultimate outcome in diverse models of organ damage. Initial observations of remarkable potentiation of halomethane hepatoxicity in rats previously exposed to an organochlorine insecticide lead to a series of studies to elucidate this novel mechanism. Stimulation of tissue repair in response to injury is essential for prevention of organ failure and death in multiple model systems. Chemicals and other metabolic disturbances (such as diabetes) that interfere with stimulation of tissue repair therefore presents a novel mechanism for potentiation of toxicity. Identification of candidate genes for regulation of stimulated tissue repair by Dr. Mehendale’s group promises new therapeutic or preventative approaches for organ injury. In large part due to remarkable success with competitive grants, Dr. Mehendale consistently provided opportunity for education and training for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.
The National Institutes of Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry are examples of long-term sponsors of this research. His commitment to quality, continuous adoption of new technologies, and enthusiasm for refining understanding of mechanisms of toxicity define him as an outstanding mentor. Dr. Harihara Mehendale’s record of achievement in independent investigator-initiated research, and success as a mentor, make him a highly deserving recipient of the SOT 2010 Distinguished Toxicology Scholar Award.

Tetsuo Satoh

Tetsuo Satoh, Ph.D., has had a prestigious career as one of the leaders of education in the science of toxicology and thus is recognized with the 2010 Education Award. In addition to the international recognition he has received for his scientific contributions to the toxicologic aspects of drug metabolism, Dr. Satoh is recognized for his exceptional efforts in support of education in toxicology. Dr. Satoh joined the Chiba University, Chiba, Japan in 1966 where he directed toxicology teaching and research for 30 years until leaving the Chiba University in 1996 as Emeritus Professor of Toxicology. More than two hundred students have graduated from his laboratory and they are currently working as leaders in toxicology for academia, government, and companies in Japan and in other countries. Dr. Satoh has served the Japanese Society of Toxicology (JST) in numerous positions including the Executive Committee. He established the Toxicology Education Program in the JST, which later developed into the Certification Program for Toxicologists in Japan. Dr. Satoh was the Founding President of the International Assembly for the Recognition of Toxicologists (IART), a group whose focus was on accreditation and certification of toxicologists worldwide. Dr. Satoh was one of the founders of the Asian Society of Toxicology (ASIATOX), and currently is the Senior Advisor to ASIATOX. He has been invited to a number of international meetings to give lectures concerning education and training of toxicologists.

Dr. Satoh joined the Society of Toxicology in 1974 and he was the first recipient of the Colgate-Palmolive Traveling Lectureship in Alternative Methods in Toxicology Award in 1996. In addition, he served as an Associate Editor of the journal Toxicological Sciences. Dr. Satoh has served the International Union of Toxicology (IUTOX) in numerous positions including Vice President, and he was awarded the 2007 IUTOX Merit Award for his outstanding work and significant contributions to the filed of toxicology. He is an eminent toxicologist and a marvelous teacher who has contributed significantly over 30 years to education and training of graduate students and young toxicologists at the national, regional, and international levels. The Society of Toxicology recognizes Dr. Tetsuo Satoh with the 2010 Education Award.

Leonard M. Schechtman

Leonard M. Schechtman, Ph.D., is presented the SOT 2010 Enhancement of Animal Welfare Aware in recognition of the outstanding contributions he has made to the advancement of toxicological science through the development and application of methods that replace, refine, and reduce experimental animal use in research, education, and regulatory safety testing.

Dr. Schechtman was the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Principal Agency Representative to the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM) from 1999 through 2006 and served as Chairman of ICCVAM from 2001 through 2006. Under his leadership, ICCVAM developed guidelines for nomination and submission of alternative test methods, defined and implemented test method performance standards to expedite validation, enhanced international cooperation with the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) and Japanese Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods( JaCVAM), and successfully evaluated and transmitted formal recommendations to U.S. federal agencies on the scientific validity of several new alternative methods in accordance with the 2000 ICCVAM Authorization Act. These alternative safety testing methods were subsequently adopted by U.S. regulatory agencies and international organizations such as the OECD and its 30 member countries. The methods now allow for required regulatory safety testing for dermal corrosion, acute systemic toxicity, ocular toxicity, and pyrogenicity testing to be conducted more humanely and with fewer or no animals.

Dr. Schechtman also has contributed significantly to the development and adoption of internationally harmonized guidance on the validation and use of novel in vitro and in vivo safety evaluation methods.
As president of Innovative Toxicology Consulting, he is further contributing to the development, scientific validation, and advancement of alternative methods for regulatory safety testing. The Society of Toxicology is pleased and honored to award Dr. Schechtman the SOT 2010 Enhancement of Animal Welfare Award.

James S. Bus

James S. Bus, Ph.D., recipient of the SOT 2010 Founders Award, is Director of External Technology, Toxicology and Environmental Research and Consulting at The Dow Chemical Company. He has worked tirelessly and vocally on the very issues that describe the Founders award, demonstrating “outstanding leadership in fostering the role of toxicological sciences in safety decision-making through the development and/or application of state-of-the-art approaches that elucidate, with a high degree of confidence, the distinctions for humans between safe and unsafe levels of exposures to chemical and physical agents.”

Dr. Bus has truly distinguished himself over the years in toxicology research and its application in safety assessment. His leadership is demonstrated through his positions on such boards as the National Academy of Sciences Board of Environmental Sciences and Toxicology, the ILSI Health and Environmental Sciences Institute, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board, and the Toxicology Forum, to name a few. He has served as President of the Society of Toxicology and the American Board of Toxicology. Among his awards is the Society of Toxicology Achievement Award (1987) for his outstanding contributions to the science of toxicology. His research interests include mechanisms of oxidant toxicity, defense mechanisms to chemical toxicity, relationships of pharmacokinetics to expression of chemical toxicity, and general pesticide and industrial chemical toxicology.

Dr. Bus has constantly pushed the science of toxicology to improve and expand the application of the best toxicological data into regulatory decisions. He is driven by a passion and contagious enthusiasm for improving the toxicological basis for regulatory decisions. Dr. Bus has worked to ensure that state-of-the-art approaches are applied to regulatory decisions. He is determined to work to improve the quality of our regulatory system to better protect human health and more capably set safe levels for chemical agents. We congratulate and recognize Dr. James Bus as the recipient of the SOT 2010 Founders Award.

Richard S. Paules

Richard S. Paules, Ph.D., Senior Scientist and Head, Environmental Stress and Cancer Group, Laboratory of Molecular Toxicology, Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), and Director, NIEHS Microarray Group, is awarded the Leading Edge in Basic Science Award for his recent and seminal scientific contribution to understanding fundamental mechanisms of toxicology.

A respected leader and strong force in the field of toxicogenomics, Dr. Paules proved to be a true visionary who early on captured the essence of the field and the power of the technology and has diligently positioned NIEHS at the forefront of the field. He has been a major contributor to the development of the National Center for Toxicogenomics (NCT) research infrastructure and the development of strong partnerships between the Institute, academia and the corporate sector. Dr. Paules led a large research effort in which proof-of-concept toxicogenomics studies were performed to demonstrate the utility of bringing together genomic approaches with more traditional approaches of biology, molecular biology, physiology, pathology, and toxicology in order to gain insight into the molecular mechanisms involved in the etiology and progression of injury and disease processes. An additional goal was to develop predictive biomarkers of the initiation and progression of those processes. In addition to his studies incorporating genomics into studies of xenobiotic-induced liver injury, Dr. Paules has successfully integrated genomics into his studies of a mechanistic understanding of how errors in DNA damage responses can contribute to diseases including cancer.

Dr. Paules continually displays the attributes expected of the best scientists and his record of scientific achievements suggests that he will continue to excel as a leader in environmental health research and toxicology. For his work in the integration of genomics into the investigation of the molecular basis of injury and disease processes, the Society of Toxicology recognizes Dr. Richard Paules with the SOT 2010 Leading Edge in Basic Science Award.

Philip Cohen

Professor Sir Philip Cohen is the founder and Co-Director of the Division of Signal Transduction Therapy (DSTT), the UK’s largest collaboration between a basic research institution and the pharmaceutical industry. It is widely regarded as a model for how industry and academia should interact, for which it received a Queen’s Anniversary Award for Higher Education in 2006.

For the past 40 years, Dr. Cohen’s research has been devoted to studying the role of protein phosphorylation in cell regulation and human disease, a process that controls almost all aspects of cell life. His contributions to this area include working out over a 25-year period how calmodulin, the calcium-binding protein, is involved in the insulin-induced stimulation of glycogen metabolism in muscle. Currently, his laboratory is investigating the signaling pathways that regulate the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and interferons during bacterial and viral infection, research that is aimed at understanding how the uncontrolled production of these substances causes chronic inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and septic shock.

Dr. Cohen was born on July 22, 1945, in Edgware, Middlesex, England, and received his B.Sc. (1966) and Ph.D. (1969) from University College London. He then spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington (Seattle, WA) with Dr. Edmond Fischer (the 1992 Nobel Laureate for Medicine or Physiology).

In 1971, Dr. Cohen returned to the UK to become a faculty member at the University of Dundee, Scotland, where he has worked ever since. He has been a Royal Society Research Professor since 1984, Director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Protein Phosphorylation Unit since its inception in 1990, and was the Honorary President of the British Biochemical Society from 2006–2008.
He was knighted in 1998.

Ferid Murad

Nobel Laureate Ferid Murad is being recognized by SOT for his contributions to public health and medicine. He is the Director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine and holds the John S. Dunn Distinguished Chair in Physiology and Medicine at the University of Texas.

His key research demonstrated that nitroglycerin and related drugs work by releasing nitric oxide into the body, which acts as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system, making blood vessels dilate. The missing steps in the signaling process were filled in by Robert F. Furchgott and Louis J. Ignarro. The three received the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this work. Drs. Murad and Furchgott received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1996.

Dr. Murad is an Albanian-American physician and pharmacologist, who was born September 14, 1936, in Whiting, Indiana. He received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the pre-med program at DePauw University in 1958. An early graduate of the first Medical Scientist Training Program to be developed, he received an M.D. and Ph.D. in pharmacology from Case Western Reserve University in 1965. He then joined the faculty of University of Virginia, where he was made professor in 1970, before moving to Stanford University in 1981. Dr. Murad left Stanford in 1988 for a position at Abbott Laboratories, where he served as a vice president until starting his own biotechnology company, the Molecular Geriatrics Corporation, in 1993. Dr. Murad relocated to the University of Texas in 1997 to create a new department of integrative biology, pharmacology, and physiology.

Marion F. Ehrich

Marion F. Ehrich, Ph.D., receives the 2010 Merit Award. She is a tenured professor of pharmacology and toxicology and the co-director of the Laboratory for Neurotoxicity Studies at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine (VMRCVM) on the campus of Virginia Tech. Her research interests include biochemical neurotoxicology, particularly neurotoxicity of organophosphates. Dr. Ehrich is nationally known and her accomplishments in neurotoxicology and in vitro toxicology are most notable. She has been a leading investigator in determining the mechanisms and pathogenesis of organophosphate esterinduced neurotoxicity (OPIDN) and other pesticide-induced injuries to the nervous system. An expert in the assessment and role of neurotoxic esterase in OPIDN, she is often called upon by both government and industry for her expertise. She has been a pioneer in the use of in vitro systems for mechanistic studies and safety assessment in neurotoxicology, with potential contribution to a diminished need for animal use in chemical safety assessments.

Dr. Ehrich is a practicing registered pharmacist and pharmacy consultant to the VMRCVM, served as SOT President 2003–2004, and American Veterinary Medical Association, and is also a member of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences, and American Academy of Veterinary Pharmacology and Therapeutics. She has mentored more than 35 masters and doctoral level students. Dr. Ehrich’s publications span 38 years, including 300 book chapters, reviews, research and educational publications. Her grant funding sources have included National Institutes of Health (NIH), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), U.S. EPA, the Department of Defense and others. Her distinguished contributions to toxicology over 30 years encompass research, teaching, consulting, and mentoring as well as an unbridled dedication to the Society. It is a true pleasure to honor and recognize Dr. Marion Ehrich with the SOT 2010 Merit Award.

Philip Wexler

Philip Wexler’s extensive career at the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) Toxicology and Environmental Health Information Program, coupled with his other professional affiliations, collaborations, and independent projects, designed to make toxicology more accessible to the public, uniquely qualify him for the SOT Public Communications Award.

Serving as Editor-in-Chief of Elsevier’s Information Resources in Toxicology (4th ed., 2009) and the 4-volume Encyclopedia of Toxicology (2nd ed., 2005), he has managed the fine balance of communicating with both scientific audiences and the public. An author of numerous papers, Mr. Wexler is currently preparing “Toxicology: An Evolving Informatics Framework” for Critical Reviews in Toxicology. His public policy orientation will be featured in another book he is co-editing, Chemicals, Environment, Health: A Global Management Perspective, for Taylor and Francis.

He served for two terms as Chair of the SOT’s World Wide Web Advisory Committee and is 2010 President of SOT’s Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues Specialty Section. With Steve Gilbert, he assembled the Toxicology History Room at SOT’s 2009 Annual Meeting. He is Vice President of the Toxicology Education Foundation, which promotes the public understanding of toxicology.

Mr. Wexler is a member of the recently assembled Education and Communications Work Group of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s (ATSDR) National Conversation on Public Health and Chemical Exposure project. At National Library of Medicine (NLM), he has been instrumental in developing and enhancing the TOXNET system and its components, serves as file manager for the LactMed, Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) and International Toxicity Estimates for Risk (ITER) databases, and heads the Risk Assessment Information Team. He spearheaded the development of the multi-stakeholder produced World Library of Toxicology, Chemical Safety, and Environmental Health, an on-line global collaborative and network.

Mr. Wexler oversees the NLM-SOT joint project ToxLearn, a multi-module tutorial covering the basic principles of toxicology for general audiences. He has taught countless medical librarians and others the use of toxicology information systems, at NLM and other venues, and made numerous presentations and conducted continuing education courses at meetings throughout the world.

Mr. Wexler’s contributions have had and continue to have an enormous impact on how scientists, other professionals, and the public at large accesses toxicological information. We congratulate and recognize Philip Wexler, M.L.S., with the SOT 2010 Public Communications Award.

Kenneth E. McMartin

Kenneth E. McMartin, Ph.D., is the 2010 Translational Impact award recipient. He is Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Neuroscience at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center—Shreveport (LSUHSC-S), Director of the LSUHSC-S interdisciplinary graduate program in toxicology, and Co-Director of the Pharmacokinetics Core for the Center for Experimental Cancer Therapeutics.

Dr. McMartin’s early studies showed that, in experimental methanol poisonings, formic acid was the proximate toxicant and had a causative role in the severe metabolic acidosis observed for these intoxications. He worked with collaborating laboratories to develop treatment modalities. This effort culminated in the commercialization of the antidote 4-methylpyrazole, now called fomepizole. The ensuing product development progressed through animal experimentation and then phase I-phase III clinical trials. Importantly, fomepizole is now utilized worldwide and has become the standard of care for both ethylene glycol and methanol poisonings.

In recent years, Dr. McMartin has conducted mechanistic experimental studies on the pathogenesis of the renal toxicity of ethylene glycol, demonstrating that the precipitation of calcium oxalate crystals in the kidneys was a causative factor in the observed renal tubular toxicity. He is currently investigating mechanisms of toxicity for diethylene glycol poisonings, an important problem evident by recent and past epidemic intoxications worldwide. Thus, Dr. McMartin has had a significant impact on clinical toxicology, dedicating his career to the study of mechanisms of action of toxicants important in common poisonings and in the development of antidotes for their therapy. We are delighted to recognize Dr. Kenneth McMartin as the SOT 2010 Translational Impact awardee.

J. Chris Corton

J. Chris Corton, Ph.D., is the 2010 AstraZeneca Traveling Lectureship Award winner. The award recognizes excellence in research and service in toxicology and enables a lecture tour of Europe to promote collaborations between European and North American toxicologists. Dr. Corton is a Senior Research Biologist in the Integrated Systems Toxicology Division at the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Research Triangle Park, NC. For more than two decades, Dr. Corton has studied the mode of action and human relevance of hepatotoxicants. His group has successfully used a multi-pronged strategy dominated by toxicogenomics and nullizygous mouse models to uncover chemical mode of action useful for risk assessment. More recently, his group is evaluating and implementing the use of high-throughput in vitro methods as first-tier screening for hepatotoxicity and mode of action categorization. He is on the editorial boards of 6 journals and has served as member and chair on numerous National Institutes of Health (NIH) study sections. He has also served in many capacities in SOT including member and chair of the Continuing Education Committee. Dr. Corton will focus his lecture tour to European scientists who are part of the REACH chemical testing program and who are part of the HepatoSys collaborative network of scientists directed toward building predictive computational models of the liver. Dr. Corton will conduct a lecture series at both industrial and academic institutions in Europe with the objective to establish productive relationships and collaborations with European colleagues, gain an understanding of approaches and methods in in vitro hepatotoxicology in Europe, and to gain a better understanding of the European viewpoints on in vitro testing, risk assessment and science policy of chemicals in general and hepatotoxicants in particular. We recognize Dr. Chris Corton with the 2010 AstraZeneca Traveling Lectureship Award.

The Board of Publications has selected the paper entitled “Identification and Characterization of Toxicity of Contaminants in Pet Food Leading to an Outbreak of Renal Toxicity in Cats and Dogs” as the best paper published in Toxicological Sciences in the past year (Toxicological Sciences 2008, 106: 251–262). The authors of the paper are Roy L.M. Dobson, Safa Motlagh, Mike Quijano, R. Thomas Cambron, Timothy R. Baker, Aletha M. Pullen, Brian T. Regg, Adrienne S. Bigalow-Kern, Thomas Vennard, Andrew Fix, Ranate Reimschuessel, Gary Overmann, Yuching Shan, and George P. Daston.

The work described in the paper was conducted after the observation of acute renal failure in cats and dogs led to a major recall of pet food in 2007. The authors carried out an extensive analytical effort to identify possible contaminants in wheat gluten and ultimately discovered numerous small molecule contaminants including melamine and several other triazines (ammeline, ammelide, ureidomelamine, N-methylmelamine, and cyanuric acid). These compounds were not cytotoxic when tested individually in cultured kidney cells or in vivo in rats, but mixtures of the triazines caused renal failure associated with crystalline deposits in the medullary region. The authors subsequently correlated these findings in rats to post-mortem analysis of crystals obtained from cats and confirmed the presence of high levels of melamine and cyanuric acid in the crystals. Collectively, the results established a causal link between the contaminated gluten and renal toxicity and demonstrated that although relatively innocuous in isolation, the combination of melamine and cyanuric acid formed insoluble precipitates that damaged the renal tubules leading to renal failure and death.

This paper is being recognized because it is an outstanding example of the integration of analytical chemistry, in vitro and in vivo studies, and histopathology to identify molecular mechanisms of toxicity. In addition, the research was highlighted in a press release by the Society and Oxford University Press because it provided important insight to the general public regarding the analysis and toxicity of contaminated pet food (and subsequently infant formula as well). In this way, it also brought public visibility to the collective efforts of toxicologists to create a safer and healthier world.