January 2023 Newsletter

Table of Contents

Message from Chair

Introduction of New Officers 

3rd Annual Spring Virtual meeting (April 7)

ACS Northeast Regional Meeting (NERM) 2023

Call for Nominations (Founder’s Award and ACS Fellows)

Message from Chair

Greetings from Nashville! I am honored to serve as the incoming Chair of the TOXI Division. As Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University, I have served previously as Treasurer and most recently, as Chair-Elect. I have been an active member of ACS since 1981 and I’ve also served several terms as Chair of the Nashville Section. 

I wish to thank Natalia Tretyakova (Minnesota) for her extraordinary service to the Division as 2021-2022 TOXI Chair. As immediate past-Chair, Natalia continues her leadership as a member of the Executive Committee. 

TOXI continued to thrive in 2022. Our spring Special Virtual TOXI Symposium celebrated 35 years of Chemical Research in Toxicology in honor of Prof. Larry Marnett, Chemical Research in Toxicology founding editor.  The Fall ACS national meeting, held in Chicago, featured an exciting program put together by Michael Trakselis (Baylor University) and Sarah Shuck (City of Hope). and was a great success. Also in 2022, Ujjal Sarkar (Cerevel) spearheaded the effort to create the ACS Toxicology India Society. The Division had secured funding for this project from the ACS Innovative Project Grants for Divisional Enhancement. Implementation of the current TOXI Strategic Plan continued in 2022. One emphasis has been to promote emerging technologies that facilitate toxicological research at the molecular level. The TOXI division is working with Shana Sturla, Editor-in-Chief of Chemical Research in Toxicology, to produce a special issue focusing on applications of mass spectrometry in chemical toxicology. Natalia Tretyakova will be editing the issue.  Another continuing emphasis is establishing a young scientist mentoring program, which will benefit early career scientists, both in academia and in industry.  Sarah Shuck secured funding for this project in the form of an IPG grant from ACS. 

Creating cutting-edge and high impact programming for TOXI members, both in academia and in industry, remains a high priority. Of course, at the ACS Fall Meeting, but also at regional and international ACS meetings, and in the form of virtual TOXI symposia, which may be more focused on specific topics of interest to the membership. Along these lines, we are planning for a virtual TOXI symposium in April, which will include programming from the ACS Toxicology India Society; stay tuned for details.

The Division is pleased to sponsor a session titled “Chemical biology of DNA damage tolerance” at the Northeast Regional Meeting (NERM) of the American Chemical Society to be held on June 14-17, 2023, at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. Please see the details in the newsletter. 

This year’s Fall meeting will be held in San Francisco, August 13-17, 2023. Program Chairs Michael Trakselis and Sarah Shuck are putting together a great program.  We’ll have the always exciting Founder’s and Young Investigators symposia, additional thematic symposia, and our always outstanding poster sessions. And our awards for graduate student and post-doctoral presentations. It’s not too early to think about submitting abstracts—the deadline is April 4. If you can’t make it in person, the meeting will be held in hybrid mode, as has been the case in recent years. 

The theme of the San Francisco meeting is “Harnessing the Power of Data”. TOXI will contribute to this theme through programming in emerging applications of Artificial Intellgence (AI) in chemical toxicology, in concert with the Chemical Information (CINF) and Medicinal Chemistry (MEDI) Divisions. Our AI programming is in part a result of a successful ACS Convergent Chemistry Community Grant Proposal (CCC), entitled Converging Augmented Artificial Intelligence (AAI) Chemistries, which was submitted by Program Chair Michael Trakselis and Ujjal Sarkar, Zucai Suo, and Grover Miller, in collaboration with the ACS CINF and MEDI Divisions. The CCC grant program aims to develop emerging areas of chemistry via interdivisional collaboration and is a priority of ACS President Judith C. Giordan.  I’m pleased to see this, as TOXI has a long history of promoting interdisciplinary science.

I’m looking forward to an exciting year and I hope to see everyone in San Francisco!

Michael P Stone

 

Introduction of New Officers

We congratulate the following winning candidates and thank all candidates for their participation and willingness to serve the division. 

Chair-Elect: Thomas Spratt

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Thomas Spratt is a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey PA.  Tom received a BA in Chemistry from the University of Rochester and a PhD in bioorganic chemistry from the University of Chicago.  He did post-doctoral research with Heinz Floss at the Department of Chemistry at Ohio State studying mechanisms of DNA alkylation using chiral methyl alkylating agents. He went on to study with Steve Hecht at the American Health Foundation where he was introduced to tobacco carcinogenesis. His research at the American Health Foundation and Penn State has focused on mechanisms of DNA repair, fidelity of DNA polymerases and how carcinogen-induced mutations occur. Tom has been an active member of the Division of Chemical Toxicology, American Chemical Society since its inception, serving as a member of the Awards Committee (2009-2012), Secretary (2008-2011), Program Chair (2016-2019), and Chair of the Publicity/Communications Committee (2007-present). Tom has been an active member of joined TOXI at its inception. He organized two symposia for the Division, was Secretary of the Division for four years, Program Chair for three years, and has lead the TOXI Publicity Committee for the past 13 years. He has also served on the Advisory Board for Chemical Research in Toxicology (2004-2007, 2018-present).

 

Member-at-Large: James Galligan

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James Galligan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Arizona. He graduated with a BS in Physiology from Michigan State University and a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. His dissertation was focused on the intersection of the oxidative stress and ER stress responses in the alcoholic liver. As a graduate student, he was awarded an F31 predoctoral fellowship to support these studies. Following graduate school, he conducted his postdoctoral studies at Vanderbilt University in the laboratory of Dr. Lawrence Marnett. Here, he investigated the impact of histone adduction by electrophilic metabolic by-products and their role in mediating transcriptional responses to stress. His research led to the development of a highly sensitive mass spectrometry-based assay to profile protein post-translational modifications in any biological sample. At the conclusion of his postdoc in 2018, he began his independent lab at the University of Arizona in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology. As faculty, he has continued to pursue his interests in metabolism and epigenetics, identifying three novel post-translational modifications and their role in mediating homeostatic responses to stress. Currently, Jim is a member of the ACS Division of Chemical Toxicology and the Society of Toxicology. He is dedicated to mentoring the next generation of scientists, providing ample mentoring and networking opportunities for his trainees.

 

Member of the Nominations Committee: Yinsheng Wang

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Yinsheng Wang received his Ph. D. degree from Washington University in St. Louis after obtaining his BS and MS degrees from Shandong University and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, respectively.  He is currently a distinguished professor and Donald T. Sawyer Endowed Founder’s Chair in Chemistry at the University of California Riverside. Yinsheng’s research involves the use of mass spectrometry, along with synthetic organic chemistry and molecular biology, for the investigation of the occurrence and biological consequences of DNA damage as well as for the identification and functional characterizations of nucleic acid- and nucleotide-binding proteins.  Yinsheng has trained over 80 Ph. D. students and post-doctoral fellows, and he has co-authored over 340 research articles.  Yinsheng was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences in 2012, and he was the recipient of the inaugural Chemical Research in Toxicology Young Investigator Award from the Division of Chemical Toxicology of the American Chemical Society (2012), the 2013 Biemann Medal from the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, the 2018 EAS Award for Outstanding Achievements in Mass Spectrometry, and the 2020 RIVER award from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Councilor: Sarah Shuck

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Sarah Shuck is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Diabetes and Cancer Metabolism in the Beckman Research Institute at City of Hope. She received her Ph.D. from Indiana University and was a Ruth Kirschstein NIH postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University with Dr. Larry Marnett. Dr. Shuck has been an active ACS member for over a decade and has been enthusiastically involved with the Chem Tox division throughout this time. She currently serves as a councilor and program chair elect and has worked to organize numerous symposia and the full national program. To support the travel of students and postdocs to the National Meeting, she contributed to the preparation and submission of several successfully funded NIEHS R13 grants.  She also received an ACS Project Grant on behalf of the division to establish a mentoring program focused on diversity and inclusion. Sarah is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Chemical Research in Toxicology and has reviewed numerous manuscripts for this journal. She recently initiated a Perspectives series inviting mentees of the leaders of Chemical Toxicology to submit a tribute to their mentor along with a review article focused on their research interests. She also served as a guest editor for the 35th Chemical Research in Toxicology special issue honoring Dr. Larry Marnett. Dr. Shuck is an expert in analytical chemistry and has developed a multiplexed mass spectrometry method to measure analytes for prediction and early diagnosis of cancer, diabetes, and diabetic complications. In addition to biomarker development, she is also focused on establishing the role of electrophile stress in driving disease.

Alternate Councilor: Ujjal Sarkar

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Ujjal Sarkar is a resident of Belmont, Massachusetts. He is currently a DMPK project representative and leading a translational Drug Biotransformation function towards bringing innovative therapeutic interventions for a broad range of neuroscience diseases at Cerevel Therapeutics in Cambridge. He is also an elected Councilor of American Chemical Society (ACS) representing Division of Chemical Toxicology (TOXI).  He earned a B.Sc. (Hons.) degree in Chemistry from Presidency College, and a M.Sc. in Bio-organic and medicinal chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T) Kharagpur. He then moved to the US to pursue a Ph.D. in the areas of anticancer drug design, drug metabolism and mechanism of drug action at the University of Missouri-Columbia with Prof. Kent S. Gates. He then accepted a postdoctoral associate offer from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T), was promoted to a Drug Metabolism Research Scientist, and worked with Professor Steven R. Tannenbaum in the department of Biological Engineering. Dr. Sarkar cross-collaborated with scientists, engineers, and US government officials to develop the first multi-human-microphysiological including endometrium organ system, funded by the US Defense of Project Agency. Dr. Sarkar then took the transition to a biopharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca, towards driving innovative Oncology drug discovery and development programs. He was awarded Global Oncology Innovation and Achievement Award in 2018.

Dr. Sarkar has been an active member in the TOXI over 16+ years and has served on several program committees including Program Development Committee and Communication Committee. He had chaired and organized the Young Investigator Oral Symposiums in for several years. He has contributed to several research papers including J. Med. Chem. Drug. Metab. Disposition. Chem. Res. Toxicol, JACS, Pharmacometrics & Systems Pharmacology, Nature Scientific Reports, J. Org. Chem and PloS one. He has been a peer and adjudicative reviewer of 10+ journals including from the Royal Society of Chemistry, Elsevier, and the American Chemical Society, and had been on two editorial boards. In 2014, he became a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemists. He has been a member of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Chemical Society (ACS), International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics (ISSX). He is a Biotransformation Organizing Committee member of Applied Pharmaceutical Analysis-Boston Society India chapter. He co-led and co-inaugurated ACS-TOXI-India Chapter with the TOXI division chair and program chair Drs. Natalia Tretyakova and Michael Trakselis, and successfully has received two Innovative Project Grants toward bringing partners from industry and government to forge US-India collaboration in chemical toxicology, water, food, drug safety, and related topics. Dr. Sarkar is actively engaged with Division of Chem Tox. over a decade, and he is continuously bringing new ideas and perspectives to the TOXI programs and visions.

3rd Annual Spring Virtual meeting (April 7)

The next TOXI event will be our 3rd Annual Spring Virtual meeting, scheduled to take place on Friday April 7th. This will be a half-day symposium beginning around 7 am PST. We are working to finalize the schedule which will include a combination of two exciting new TOXI initiatives, including Augmented Artificial Intelligence and participation from our newly formed international TOXI chapter from India. More details can be found in the coming weeks.

Michael Trakselis, along with help from Ujjal Sarkar, Zucai Suo, and Grover Miller put together an ACS Convergent Chemistry Community Grant Proposal, entitled Converging Augmented Artificial Intelligence (AAI) Chemistries in collaboration with the CINF and MEDI Divisions of the ACS that was awarded $30,000 over two years to better establish emerging areas of chemistry in collaboration with other Divisions. We are planning a special symposia and social event at the 2023 Fall ACS meeting in San Francisco (August 13 – 17). Abstract submissions are now open (through April 4th) for the Fall 2023 meeting and we encourage you to submit here. We have put together another strong and innovative program for this meeting and are expecting a great turnout of TOXI members. Based on feedback from the last Fall 2022 meeting in Chicago, we have adjusted our programming schedule to be less demanding without losing any of our great Divisional interactions. We hope to see all of you in person in San Francisco in August! Be on the lookout for upcoming opportunities for graduate student/postdoc CRT writing fellowships and travel awards to attend the 2023 meeting. Several of these trainee-authored articles from Fall ACS 2022 are now published in Chem. Res. Toxi. 1, 2, 3.

ACS Northeast Regional Meeting (NERM) 2023

The Division of Chemical Toxicology is pleased to sponsor a session titled “Chemical biology of DNA damage tolerance” at the Northeast Regional Meeting (NERM) of the American Chemical Society to be held on June 14-17, 2023, at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. The theme of the meeting, Chemistry: Crossing Intersections, will be reflected in the technical program featuring research that transcends the traditional boundaries of chemistry and chemical engineering. Speakers in our “Chemical biology of DNA damage tolerance” session are being selected to be inclusive of gender, career stage, and employment sector. Students are actively engaged in symposium planning and will be involved in presiding over the symposium. We also express our sincere appreciation to our sponsors the Division of Chemical Toxicology (TOXI) and Glen Research.

Confirmed speakers in our session are:

Sharon B. Cantor, University of Massachusetts Medical School

Nimrat Chatterjee, University of Vermont

Zachary Nagel, Harvard University School of Public Health

Kelly M. Zatopek, New England Biolabs

Rob Sobol, Brown University 

We are actively confirming additional speakers and sponsors. The session will also feature lightning talks from poster presenters.

 

The meeting also features four outstanding plenary speakers:

Stuart Schreiber, Harvard University and the Broad Institute

Alexa Dembek, DuPont

Cato Laurencin, University of Connecticut (2023 ACS Priestley medalist)

Elizabeth O’Day, CEO and Founder Olaris, Inc

For details, please visit https://2023.nermconference.org/

Abstracts are being accepted now through March 13. Please encourage members of your group to submit an abstract to present their work!

 

Call for Nominations (Founder’s Award and ACS Fellows)

Founders’ Award (Deadline 3/11/2023)

The award is established in honor of the founders of the Division and recognizes scientists whose work exemplifies the founders’ vision of excellence in the field of chemical toxicology. Nominees should be members of the Division of Chemical Toxicology whose scientific activities have emphasized innovative research in the general field of chemical toxicology.

The Award consists of a plaque and the recipient will organize a Symposium at the American Chemical Society National Meeting.  The symposium will culminate with the recipient presenting the Richard Loeppky Lecture.

Nominations are sought by the Awards Committee for the presentation at the following fall meeting of the American Chemical Society Meeting.

A nomination document should include:

  1. Nomination letter containing an evaluation of the nominee’s accomplishments and innovative research in Chemical Toxicology.
  2. The candidate’s CV with a list of publications and patents.

Nominations should be submitted as a single PDF file (Name the PDF file with the candidate’s name, for example, LawrenceMarnett_FoundersNomination.pdf).

Send nominations to Amanda Bryant-Friedrich <amanda.bryant-friedrich@wayne.edu>

ACS Fellows (Deadline 3/11/2023)

The American Chemical Society (ACS) Fellows Program was created by the ACS Board of Directors in December 2008 to recognize members of ACS for outstanding achievements in and contributions to science, the profession, and the Society.  TOXI is entitled to nominate four individuals.

A nomination document should include:

  1. Nomination letter containing an evaluation of the nominee’s accomplishments, scientific and service to the American Chemical Society.
  2. The candidate’s CV with a list of publications and patents.

Nominations should be submitted as a single PDF file (Name the PDF file with candidate’s name, for example, LawrenceMarnett_ACSFellow.pdf)

Send nominations to Amanda Bryant-Friedrich <amanda.bryant-friedrich@wayne.edu>