Several faculty members, alumni and students from the Michigan State University Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology were honored recently during the Society of Toxicology’s 53rd annual meeting and ToxExpo in Phoenix.
- Professor Jay I. Goodman received the 2014 SOT Merit Award. This award honors a scientist who has contributed greatly to the science of toxicology throughout his or her career.
- Professor Patricia Ganey received the $40,000 Colgate-Palmolive Award for Alternative Research.
- Professor William D. Atchison received the 2014 SOT Undergraduate Educator Award.
- Professor Norbert Kaminski, director of the MSU Center for Integrative Toxicology, received the Senior Investigator Award from the Immunotoxicology Specialty Section of the Society of Toxicology.
- Assistant professor Cheryl Rockwell received the Outstanding Young Immunotoxicologist Award and was named a new Junior Councilor by the Immunotoxicology Specialty Section of the Society of Toxicology.
Graduate student award winners included the following.
- Kazuhisa Miyakawa, Ph.D. student in pathobiology and environmental toxicology, received the Comparative and Veterinary Specialty Section/Toxicology and Exploratory Pathology Special Section Roger O. McClellan Student Award. He also won the Emil A. Pfitzer Student Award Poster Competition from the Drug Discovery Toxicology Specialty Section, and the Ronald G. Thurman Student Travel Award from the Mechanism Specialty Section.
- Natalia Kovalova, a Ph.D. candidate, presented “Evaluation of Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor (AHR) Polymorphism G1661A on TCDD-Mediated Biological Activity in the Human B Cell.”
- Alexandra Colon-Rodriguez, a doctoral candidate in comparative medicine and integrative biology, received the Travel Award from the Hispanic Organization of Toxicologists of the Society of Toxicology.
- Ashley Maiuri, a doctoral candidate in pharmacology and toxicology/environmental toxicology, won the In Vitro and Alternative Methods Specialty Section Student Award.
- Joe Zagorski, a doctoral candidate in cell and molecular biology, won the Immunotoxicology Specialty Section Best Student Award.
- Nikita Joshi, a doctoral student in pharmacology and toxicology, earned honorable mention for the Carl C. Smith Graduate Student Award from the Mechanisms Specialty Section of the SOT and the 2014 Marcos Rojkind – American Society for Investigative Pathology Trainee Travel Award.
Three undergraduates were presented with Pfizer Travel Awards to attend the meeting and they were: Lukas Gora, Kelly VanDenBerg and Ricardo Rivera-Soto.