Scientists behind Novel Discoveries and Individuals Leading the Understanding of Emerging Areas of Concern for Public Health Are Being Honored with 2024 SOT Awards

Newswise — For more than five decades, the SOT Awards have celebrated visionary toxicologists, exceptional early career scientists, and outstanding postdocs and students. This longstanding tradition continues this year, with SOT acknowledging individuals who have made remarkable contributions to the field of toxicology.

Among the accomplishments of this year’s awardees are discoveries related to the role of altered pharmacokinetics in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, chemical risk assessments, the mechanisms of Parkinson’s disease neurodegeneration, the mechanisms of dioxin, risk of COVID-19 to smokers and vapers, the mode of action by which certain chemicals induce kidney tumors in male rats, and the role of the microbiome in pregnancy and early developmental programming.

Among the scientific advancements of this year’s award recipients are:

• Understanding the effects of xenobiotic exposure to nanoparticles and microplastics on pregnancy and fetal health
• The generation and use of genomics-based data to help inform risk assessment and regulatory decisions
• The recognition of Gulf War Illness as a neuroinflammatory disorder driven by persistent neuroimmune dysfunction
• The generation of very large novel datasets in the public domain that can be used for mapping molecular and cellular events in nuclear receptor signaling, stress response, and developmental toxicity pathways.
• The discovery of the pivotal role of cell proliferation and spontaneous errors during cell replication as contributors to cancer, resulting in non-linear dose-response and thresholds.
• Clarifying the regulatory mechanisms behind the cellular NRF2-KEAP1 defense system against environmental insults
• Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the initiation of cancer due to chemical exposures, such as to aflatoxin B1 and its metabolite AFB-8,9-epoxide, in our diet and environment
• More efficient diagnosis and treatment of exposure to chemical warfare agents, notably organophosphorus toxicants and sulfur mustard

The recipients of the 2024 Awards have demonstrated excellence not only in their respective fields but also in leadership, mentorship, and educational roles. This is evident through hundreds of published papers, the positive impact on numerous students and postdocs who have benefited from their guidance, and their influence on various regulations, processes, and standards.

The 2024 new Honorary member and SOT Award recipients will be honored during the Society’s 63rd Annual Meeting and ToxExpo in Salt Lake City, Utah, March 10–14, 2024.

SOT Honorary Membership

SOT recognizes nonmembers who embody outstanding and sustained achievements in the field of toxicology and/or allied disciplines with Honorary membership.

• Timothy Greenamyre, MD, PhD, University of Pittsburgh

SOT AWARDS (Conferred by the SOT Awards Committee)

SOT Achievement Award

This award recognizes an SOT member who has made significant contributions to toxicology within 15 years of obtaining their highest earned degree.

• Phoebe Stapleton, PhD, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

SOT Arnold J. Lehman Award

This award recognizes an SOT member who has made a major contribution to risk assessment and/or the regulation of chemical agents, including pharmaceuticals. The contribution may have resulted from the application of sound scientific principles to regulation and/or from research activities that have significantly influenced the regulatory process.

• Scott S. Auerbach, PhD, DABT, NIEHS/NTP

SOT Distinguished Toxicology Scholar Award

This award recognizes an SOT member who has made substantial and seminal scientific contributions to the understanding of the science of toxicology and is actively involved in toxicological research.

• James P. O’Callaghan, PhD, NIOSH

Distinguished Toxicology Scholar Award Lecture:

Monday, March 11, 11:00 AM to 12:00 Noon

SOT Education Award

This award recognizes an individual who is distinguished by the teaching and training of toxicologists and who has made significant contributions to education in the broad field of toxicology.

• Ilona Jaspers, PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

SOT Enhancement of Animal Welfare Award

This award recognizes an SOT member for contributions made to the advancement of toxicological science through the development and application of methods that replace, refine, or reduce the need for experimental animals. This award recognizes outstanding/significant contributions made by SOT members to the scientifically sound and responsible use of animals in research. This award also serves to recognize member contributions to the public awareness of the importance of animals in toxicology research. The achievement recognized may be either a seminal piece of work or a long-term contribution to toxicological science and animal welfare.

• Menghang Xia, PhD, NIH/NCATS

SOT Founders Award (for Outstanding Leadership in Toxicology)

This award, sponsored by the SOT Endowment Fund, recognizes a Full, Emeritus, or Retired Full member who has demonstrated 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.

• Samuel M. Cohen, MD, PhD, ATS, DABP, IATP, University of Nebraska Medical Center

SOT Leading Edge in Basic Science Award

This award recognizes a scientist who, based on research, has made a recent (within the last five years), seminal scientific contribution/advance to understanding fundamental mechanisms of toxicity. The recipient should be a respected basic scientist whose research findings are likely to have a pervasive impact on the field of toxicology.

• Donna D. Zhang, PhD, Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology

Leading Edge in Basic Science Award Lecture:

Tuesday, March 12, 11:00 AM to 12:00 Noon

SOT Merit Award

This award recognizes an SOT member who has made distinguished contributions to toxicology throughout an entire career in areas such as research, teaching, regulatory activities, consulting, and service to the Society.

• David L. Eaton, PhD, ATS, DABT, University of Washington

Merit Award Lecture:

Tuesday, March 12, 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM

SOT Public Communications Award

The SOT Public Communications Award is presented to recognize an individual who has made a major contribution to broadening the general public’s awareness of toxicological issues, including public understanding of the role and importance of experimental animals in toxicological science, through any aspect of public communications, over a significant period of time.

• Barbara L. F. Kaplan, PhD, Mississippi State University

SOT Toxicologist Mentoring Award

This award recognizes an SOT member who has displayed a commitment to mentoring and whose advice and counsel have substantially enhanced the career development of toxicologists.

• Robert Roy, PhD, DABT, ATS, Northland Toxicology Consultants LLC

SOT Translational Impact Award

This award recognizes a scientist whose recent (within the last 10 years) outstanding clinical, environmental health, or translational research has improved human and/or public health in an area of toxicological concern.

• Horst Thiermann, PhD, Bundeswehr Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology

Translational Impact Award Lecture:

Tuesday, March 12, 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM

SOT Undergraduate Educator Award

This award, sponsored by the SOT Endowment Fund, recognizes an SOT member who is distinguished by outstanding contributions to the teaching of undergraduate students in toxicology and toxicology-related areas and whose efforts support the Society’s strategic efforts to “build for the future of toxicology.”

• Hollie I. Swanson, PhD, University of Kentucky

SUPPORTED AWARDS (Conferred by the SOT Awards Committee)

Bristol Myers Squibb Graduate Student Research Training Award to Promote Diversity in Toxicology

This fellowship supplements the resources available to academic laboratories hosting and supporting Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Indigenous American graduate students to conduct their research and training.

• Romina Gonzalez-Pons, BS, Michigan State University

Advisor: Jamie J. Bernard, PhD, Michigan State University

Colgate-Palmolive Award for Student Research Training in Alternative Methods

This award is designed to graduate student research training using in vitro methods or alternative techniques to replace the use of animals in toxicological research.

• Gianna Nossa, BS, Purdue University

Colgate-Palmolive Grants for Alternative Research

This grant identifies and supports efforts that promote, develop, refine, or validate scientifically acceptable animal alternative methods to facilitate the safety assessment of new chemicals and formulations.

• Mariana Branco, PhD, Collaborative Laboratory Accelbio
• Cláudia Miranda, PhD, Collaborative Laboratory Accelbio

Colgate-Palmolive Postdoctoral Fellowship Award in In Vitro Toxicology

This award supports research to advance the development of alternatives to animal testing in toxicological research.

• Erin A. Huber, PhD, RTI International

Syngenta Fellowship Award in Human Health Applications of New Technologies

This award, presented to either a third-year (or later) graduate student or postdoctoral trainee, supports mode-of-action research aimed at characterizing dose-dependent effects of xenobiotics on mammalian systems in such a way that the causal sequence of key events underlying toxicity is elucidated.

• Jessica Ewald, PhD, Broad Institute

ADDITIONAL AWARDS

Toxicological Sciences Paper of the Year Award

Selected by the SOT Board of Publications, this award recognizes the author(s) of a paper published in the official SOT journal, Toxicological Sciences, during the 12-month period terminating with the June issue of the calendar year preceding the Annual Meeting at which the award is presented.

• Kayla L. Frost, Joseph L. Jilek, Austin D. Thompson, Robert R. Klein, Shripad Sinari, Elmira Torabzedehkorasani, Dean D. Billheimer, Rick G. Schnellmann, and Nathan J. Cherrington. “Increased Renal Expression of Complement Components in Patients with Liver Diseases: Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis, Alcohol-Associated, Viral Hepatitis, and Alcohol-Viral Combination.” Toxicological Sciences 189, no. 1 (September): 62–72. https://doi.org/10.1093/toxsci/kfac070.

SOT/SOT Endowment Fund/IUTOX Travel Awards

These travel fellowships, administered by IUTOX and sponsored by SOT and the SOT Endowment Fund, are awarded to junior and senior scientists from countries where toxicology is underrepresented to assist with travel to attend the SOT Annual Meeting and ToxExpo.

• Bárbara J. Arroyo, PhD, Universidad de Cartagena, Colombia
• Ayşe Nurşen Basaran, PhD, Başkent Üniversity, Turkey
• Ana Cristina De la Parra-Guerra, PhD, Universidad de la Costa, Colombia
• Holiness Stephen A. Olasore, PhD, University of Lagos, Nigeria
• Fernanda Junqueira Salles, PhD candidate, Universidad de São Paulo, Brazil

SOT Best Postdoctoral Publication Awards

Presented by the SOT Postdoctoral Assembly, these awards recognize outstanding work accomplished during formal mentored postdoctoral traineeships by recognizing exceptional recently published papers in the field of toxicology.

• Andres Henriquez, PhD, Health Canada

Paper Citation:

Henriquez, Andres, Samantha Snow, Thomas Jackson, John House, Alison Motsinger-Reif, Cavin Ward-Caviness, Mette Schladweiler et al. 2022. “Stress Drivers of Glucose Dynamics during Ozone Exposure Measured Using Radiotelemetry in Rats.” Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 130, no. 12 (December): 127006-1– 127006-15. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP11088.

• Rebekah Petroff, PhD, University of Michigan

Paper Citation:

Petroff, Rebekah, Raymond Cavalcante, Elizabeth Langen, Dana Dolinoy, Vasantha Padmanabhan, and Jaclyn Goodrich. 2023. “Mediation Effects of DNA Methylation and Hydroxymethylation on Birth Outcomes after Prenatal Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Exposure in the Michigan Mother–Infant Pairs Cohort.” Clinical Epigenetics 15: 49. https://doi.org10.1186/s13148-023-01461-5.

• Xian Wu, PhD, East Carolina University

Paper Citation:

Wu, Xian, Yichang Chen, Anthony Luz, Guang Hu, and Erik Tokar. 2022. “Cardiac Development in the Presence of Cadmium: An In Vitro Study Using Human Embryonic Stem Cells and Cardiac Organoids.” Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 130, no. 11 (November): 117002-1– 117002-11. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP11208.

SOT Perry J. Gehring Diversity Student Travel Award

Selected by the SOT Committee on Diversity Initiatives and named after an SOT Past President, this award recognizes an undergraduate or graduate student who was previously selected to participate in the SOT Undergraduate Diversity Program, who is from a racial/ethnic group underrepresented in toxicology (for example, African American, Hispanic, Native American, or Pacific Islander), and who is presenting a poster at the SOT Annual Meeting and ToxExpo.

• Alanis Joan Torres Berríos, Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez
• Gia Marie Valdez, DePaul University

SOT Undergraduate Diversity Program Advisor Travel Award

This award provides the opportunity for undergraduate faculty advisors who are not SOT members to attend the SOT Undergraduate Diversity Program at the SOT Annual Meeting and ToxExpo to help them become more familiar with toxicology as a career option for their students.

• Héctor J. Rosa López, MS, Universidad Ana G. Méndez Carolina
• Ileana Feliciano Ramos, PhD, Universidad de Puerto Rico en Arecibo
• Michael D. Losiewicz, PhD, St. Mary’s University
• Denise Gemmellaro, PhD, Kean University
• Anta’Sha M. Jones, PhD, Albany State University

SOT Undergraduate Diversity Program Student Travel Award

This award provides the opportunity for promising undergraduate science majors interested in research careers to attend the SOT Undergraduate Diversity Program at the SOT Annual Meeting and ToxExpo.

• Amanda Adams, University of Arizona
• Hailey Aragon, University of New Mexico
• Kai Gurnoe-Brantley, Fort Lewis College
• Whitney Davis, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
• Onamma A. Edeh, University of New Mexico
• Jan Carlos Fernández Román, Universidad de Puerto Rico en Arecibo
• Gianina Garibaldi, Rio Hondo College
• Omar Gonzalez, San Diego State University
• Allison Harbolic, New Jersey Institute of Technology
• Ashley Kaswer, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
• Jaslin Lindsay, Fort Lewis College
• Kaleb Lynum, Oakwood University
• Rachel Majumder, University of Alabama at Birmingham
• Taylor Massey, University of Arizona
• Judith Matos, Universidad Ana G. Méndez Carolina
• Vivianna Metzler, University of Arizona
• Nya Millender, St. Mary’s University
• Yomilka Z. Molina Cordero, Universidad Ana G. Méndez Carolina
• Chelsea Niedermier, Ashland University
• Cecilia Rivas, Trinity Washington University
• Gabriela Rojas, University of La Verne
• Jemimah N. Ross, Depaul University
• McKayla Ryan, Oakwood University
• Carolina Christina Saldivar, St. Mary’s University
• Jamelis N. Santiago Díaz, Universidad de Puerto Rico en Arecibo
• Ishareet Sohal, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
• Janayah Tolbert, State University of New York at Oswego
• Najya Toodle, Albany State University
• Paola Del Mar Torres Cruz, Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico
• Amaya Williams, Albany State University

SOT Undergraduate Research Awards

These awards recognize outstanding undergraduates who have not yet received their bachelor’s degrees and are presenting research at the SOT Annual Meeting and ToxExpo. The goal of these awards is to foster interest in graduate studies in the field of toxicology.

• Mina Alaaldin, University of Arizona
• Vishnupriya Alavala, Virginia Commonwealth University
• Caylee A. Brown, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Keishla Colón Montañez, University of Chicago
• Emily Dai, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Mae Anneliese Esquibel, New Mexico Highlands University
• Gabrielle F. Gonzalez, University of Florida
• Alan Ibarra, University of New Mexico
• Hannah Joo, Kenyon College
• Paige C. Lindberg, University of Arizona
• Audrey Luo, University of California, Davis
• Adira M. Safar, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• Winter S. Stubblefield, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• Shine Wang, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
• Margaret Wurster, Salish Kootenai College
• Maximiliano Zablah, McGill University

Each year, SOT also provides support to more than 100 graduate and undergraduate students through student travel awards and the SOT Endowment Fund awards. 

For more information on a particular SOT Award or award recipient, please contact Michelle Werts, SOT Deputy Executive Director for Communications, at 703.438.3115 ext. 1640 or [email protected].

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About SOT Awards and Honors

The Society of Toxicology (SOT) Awards program recognizes distinguished toxicologists and students each year based on merit. In 1962, the Society inducted its first Honorary members, establishing its honors program. In 1965, the SOT Awards program was created with the establishment of two awards, the SOT Merit Award and the SOT Achievement Award, to support “the furtherance of the science of toxicology.” Today, the Society presents more than 20 awards that recognize achievement, facilitate travel for senior and budding scientists, and further toxicological research. Hashtag: #SOTAwards

About SOT

Founded in 1961, the Society of Toxicology (SOT) is a professional and scholarly organization of more than 7,500 scientists from academic institutions, government, and industry representing the great variety of individuals who practice toxicology. SOT is committed to creating a safer and healthier world by advancing the science and increasing the impact of toxicology. The Society promotes the acquisition and utilization of knowledge in toxicology; aids in the protection of human, animal, and environmental health; and has a strong commitment to education in toxicology and to the recruitment of students and new members into the profession. SOT values diversity, equity, and inclusiveness in all their forms and promotes them as part of all Society activities. For more information about SOT, visit the Society’s website or like/follow SOT on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.