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NESOT Celebrates Darwin’s Birthday
Submitted by Paul Nugent, Ph.D., DABT, Secretary/Treasurer NESOT
In this the 200th Anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 150th Anniversary of the publication of his magnum opus On the Origin of Species, what better theme for a Regional Chapter meeting than, “The Evolution of Toxicology?” Thus, on a rainy Friday in October (October 16), approximately 100 scientists, at various stages in the evolution of their careers, gathered at the elegant headquarters of Genzyme, Inc, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to attend the Northeast Regional Chapter’s Annual Fall Meeting, consisting of a series of presentations on both the evolution of the discipline of toxicology and the latest developments in the “evolution wars” in the United States. We were also treated to 19 high-quality poster presentations, including 12 student presentations deemed eligible for three annual NESOT Fall Meeting Travel Awards.
The awards were presented as follows: 1st Place, Jeena Ahmed Santos (Brown University); 2nd Place, Ben Moyer (Brown University); 3rd Place, Priscilla Encarnacao (University of Connecticut); with honorable mentions given to Douglas Donaldson (University of Connecticut) and Jessica LaRocca (Brown University). NESOT gratefully acknowledges financial support from SOT for travel awards and speaker attendance expenses.
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(l to r) Graeme Smith (NESOT President), Priscilla Encarnacao (3rd place), Douglas Donaldson (honorable mention), Ben Moyer (2nd place), Jessica LaRocca (honorable mention).
Not Pictured Jeena Ahmed Santos (1st place). |
Presentations on the evolution of our discipline included such varied topics as Risk Assessment in the 21st Century by Lorenz Rhomberg (Gradient); New Paradigms for Toxicity Testing and Animal Use by Joanne Zurlo (ILAR, National Academy of Sciences); The History and Development of the Study of Hormesis by Edward Calabrese (University of Massachusetts); and The Use of Surface Plasmon Resonance Technology by last year’s NESOT National Meeting Student Travel Award Winner and University of Connecticut graduate student Greg Marusov. Wallace Hayes (Harvard University) provided an excellent overview of the discipline and its cornerstones from the time of Paracelsus through real life examples from today. Dr. Hayes succinctly and memorably summarized his talk with his oft-repeated mantra: “dose matters, people differ, and things change”—all one needs to know to be a toxicologist!
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Darwin Tree |
The latest developments in the “evolution wars” were eloquently presented by keynote speaker Ken Miller (Brown University) in a presentation that included reference to vertebrate evolution, (not so) intelligent design, and (much to everyone’s amusement) his two appearances on The Colbert Report. In 2005, Dr. Miller served as lead scientific witness for the plaintiffs in the court case in Pennsylvania, stemming from the Kitzmiller v. Dover (Board of Education) lawsuit, on (essentially) Evolution versus Intelligent Design. His presentation described his work on this case, setting it in the context of what he describes in his recent book, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul, as the continuing struggle over how evolution is to be understood in American society. Even more significant for all scientists (including toxicologists) in this country is Miller’s claim that these efforts to suppress the teaching of evolution is the leading edge of an anti-science agenda—a continuing attack against scientific rationalism that could impact our scientific endeavors and the country’s progress. Dr. Miller ended his presentation with a slide featuring the iconic image of an evolutionary tree from Darwin’s Notebook B of 1837, and the final sentence of On the Origin of Species:
“There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
Interestingly, this is the only reference to the word “evolve(d)” in the book.
The feedback on Dr. Miller’s presentation was very positive, prompting the NESOT Committee to consider ways in which we might introduce him to the Society of Toxicology in general. For, as the great geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky once remarked: “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” And, as Ken Miller, himself, has noted in Only a Theory: “Evolution draws all of biology into a single science. And that’s one heck of a story.”
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