Spring Issue 2006

Member Achievements

Ehrich Receives Teaching Excellence Award

Marion Ehrich, 2003-2004 SOT President, was recently selected for the national Student Veterinary Medical Association Teaching Excellence Award, Basic Sciences. She teaches a core and an elective pharmacology course and lectures in toxicology to second year veterinary students at Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, Blacksburg, VA. The award will be officially presented in July 2006, at the annual meeting of the American Veterinary Medical Association, held in Honolulu.

Swenberg Named Distinguished Professor at UNC-Chapel Hill

James Swenberg, professor of environmental sciences and engineering, nutrition, and pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been named Kenan Distinguished Professor of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, an endowed faculty position awarded to outstanding scholars and teachers. Swenberg’s successful research career has focused on chemical carcinogenesis and toxicology, with an emphasis on studying the role of DNA damage and repair in carcinogenesis, developing highly sensitive assay methods for DNA adduct research, and improving the scientific basis of risk assessment. He joined UNC-Chapel Hill in 1989 after a successful industrial and research institute career.

Acosta Receives Award in Excellence from PhRMA

Daniel Acosta, 2000-2001 President of SOT, received the 2006 Award in Excellence of Pharmacology/Toxicology from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Foundation on April 1 in San Francisco. Dr. Acosta is dean for the University of Cincinnati College of Pharmacy. This award is given annually to honorees who received a grant from PhRMA at the onset of their career and have gone on to distinguish themselves in research or administration. “I received my first grant from PhRMA at a critical point in my scientific career,” says Dr. Acosta. “I used it to buy equipment for my laboratory and hire my first graduate student. The grant was truly instrumental in my development as a research toxicologist.”

Dr. Acosta’s research has focused on the development of in vitro cell cultures as models for testing and mechanistic studies on drugs and toxicants. He was a key researcher in culturing cells that mimicked the normal tissues from which they were derived, which greatly reduced the need for experimental animal testing. SOT honored him for this work with the 2005 Enhancement of Animal Welfare Award.