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Editor, Richard Loeppky
In this Issue:
Message from the Chair, Prof. F. Peter Guengerich
Fall National ACS Meeting in Philadelphia. First of all, the big news is our successful Division programming at the Fall National ACS Meeting in Philadelphia. It's always great to see everyone again, as well as learn about new science in our field. See the photos elsewhere in the newsletter/website. We had 103 abstracts, including 51 posters and 52 talks, including the invited symposia speakers. The slides and graphics for some of these presentations (at the option of authors) are available for available for your Division member viewing until October 21. Just click here or go to the TOXI website to see them. You will need to use your email address as a login name and your ACS member number (without the leading zeros) as a password.
Founders' Award Symposium. We also had our first Founders' Award symposium, set up by my colleague Larry Marnett, the awardee. Nominations are now open for the 2009 Founders' Award. The Award is given annually to a TOXI Division member for research contributions in the field of chemical toxicology. Please send nominations to Dick Loeppky (LoeppkyR@missouri.edu), Chair of the selection committee. The committee has been expanded next year to include industrial members and bring a broader perspective to the awards.
Division Elections. Judy Bolton and the rest of the Nominating Committee have developed a fine slate. For the first time we will be voting electronically. The voting is now open. If you have not voted yet, go to our website and access the section using the login procedure described above for Philadelphia presentation viewing.
Executive Committee and Business Meetings in Philadelphia. I would like to take the occasion to discuss the state of the Division. Also, I just received an external review report from the ACS. I am very optimistic about our future and where the TOXI Division is now. Thanks to our Finance Committee (chaired by Pete Dedon) and our treasurer (Carmelo Rizzo), we have gotten a good grip on some of our expenses and also have been able to bring in new resources. We should now have a budget balance greater than a year's budget, a guideline of the ACS. Our programming remains strong, and I am pleased that Kaushik Mitra is taking the baton from Kent Gates. If you have suggestions for symposia next year (Fall meeting 16-19 August in Washington, D.C.) let Kaushik know (Kaushik_Mitra@merck.com). You can volunteer to develop one yourself if you wish. I am also pleased that, after a false start last year, our Short Courses are developing. See the article by the chair, Griff Humphreys. We will have two more short courses, one at both the Spring and Fall ACS meetings, and the teachers have devoted their honoraria to the Division. This was also the case with the Short Course at the ACS ProSpectives meeting on drug safety in May (thanks to Pete Dedon and Dan Liebler, who helped me). Our new Publications committee (chair Trevor Penning) is pushing for more symposia proceedings, which should be a general scientific benefit and also bring in revenue. See the earlier note on the presentations accessible on the web. After several good years at it, Dick Loeppky is turning over production of the newsletter to new leadership. Thanks, Dick. Last but not least, Scott Daniels, chair of the Membership committee, continues to push in this area.
Thanks I would like to thank everyone who volunteered to help in our Division offices and committees. The level of participation has been great. A few years ago some of the members of the Division lamented that younger people did not seem to be coming into this field and also wondered about the future of this Division. They were very wrong, at least in terms of what I see in the Division. At the Executive Committee meeting I noted that all of the other participants (except our august Newsletter Editor) are probably younger than me. We have many up-and-coming younger scientists from industry and academia as officers and committee chairs and members. They are enthusiastic and doing their work well. I am very optimistic about the future.
As fall approaches here in Nashville and we have relief from the hot days, I realize that my term is winding down. There are still many things to take care of, and I have been involving our Chair-elect, Lisa Peterson, in many of them. I have no doubt that the Division will be in capable hands when she assumes the office of Chair on 1 January 2009.
I am still Chair until then so, as always, I welcome your input on any issue regarding the Division. We are still in the discussion mode, but we hope to hold a Strategic Planning session with ACS professional staff just prior to the Fall 2009 ACS meeting, deciding who we are, where we want to go, and how we can get there. I (and Lisa after January) will share more on this as the preparations develop.
Regards, Fred Guengerich.
Chemical Toxicology Elections
Our election for Chair Elect,
Member at large for the Executive Committee, and Nominations Committee is currently underway. Your involvement in the Division is crucial for our success. If you have not already voted, do so before October 15.
Lawrence J. Marnett Receives Founders' Award in Philadelphia
Larry Marnett, Professor of Biochemistry, Chemistry and Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University was presented with the first Founders' Award at the National ACS meeting in Philadelphia on August 17. The award recognizes his outstanding research accomplishments and his numerous contributions to the field of chemical toxicology (see the March Newsletter for more details). He was presented with a check for $1000, a commemorative plaque, and asked to organize a symposium at which he would speak. In addition to his award lecture, symposium presentations were given by Lisa Peterson, John Essigmann, Ned Porter, and Richard Radi. 
TOXI Philadelphia Young Investigator Award Winners
The Division again judged graduate student and postdoctoral presentations submitted for competition at the national ACS meeting in Philadelphia. First and second place winners were awarded checks of $500 and $250 respectively. Funding was graciously provided by Merck and Pfizer. Five of the six winners are pictured below with TOXI Chair Fred Guengerich (left) and Program Chair Kent Gates (right). From the left the winners are Kerry Schlicht (first place oral presentation), a postdoc in Steve Tannenbaum's group at MIT; Sushmita Sen (first place poster) and Sumit Shah (second place poster), both of whom are postdocs in Ian Blair's group at the University of Pennsylvania; Daniel Tamae (second place grad student poster), a student of John Termini, City of Hope; and Carol Schultz (first place grad student poster), who is in Trevor Penning's group at the University of Pennsylvania. Not shown is Kumars Shahrokh, a student of Garold Yost at the University of Utah, who won second place for his oral presentation.
To peruse the abstracts of the winners click here. Several of the presentations can be viewed, along with others, until October 21 by going to our website link. Your ID is your email address and your password is your ACS member number without the leading zeros
Short Course Chair Humphreys Reports on First Offering
The Division sponsored a short course entitled "Chemical Toxicology: A Chemist's Roadmap to Reduce Bioactivation Liabilities in Drug Candidates" at the Fall ACS meeting in Philadelphia (Aug 16-21). The course instructors were Fred Guengerich (Vanderbilt Univ), Christine Fandozzi (Merck), Kaushik Mitra (Merck) and Griff Humphreys (BMS). The course was attended by 17 individuals, the bulk of whom were industry-based medicinal chemists.
Course Topics included:
- introduction to drug metabolism and mechanisms of bioactivation,
- overview of the enzymes important in bioactivation,
- important species and inter-subject differences in enzyme expression,
- methods for investigation of reactive metabolites as part of drug discovery programs,
- case studies of optimization of molecular structure to reduce risk of toxicity,
- mechanisms leading to metabolism-mediated genotoxicity,
- strategies useful for evaluation of reactive intermediates as part of a candidate optimization program,
- covalent binding & relevance to toxicity, and
- in vivo models to study reactive intermediate generation.
By having the instructors for the course outlined above and a separate course entitled "Introduction to Drug Metabolism" donate their honoraria, the Division will receive $5700 from ACS ("Introduction to Drug Metabolism" was instructed by Donglu Zhang (BMS, Division member) and Mingshe Zhu (BMS)).
The plan for the future is to have the Division sponsor both the Chem Tox and the Intro to Drug Metabolism courses with the target of offering the courses at each of the national ACS meetings. The next offering will be at the Spring National meeting in Salt Lake City.
Founders' Award Nominees Sought
Nominations for the 2009 TOXI Founders' Award should be sent to Selection Chair, Richard Loeppky at LoeppkyR@missouri.edu, or one of the committee members by October 20. The Founders' Award was instituted last year. The award is given to a TOXI member whose scientific activities have emphasized innovative research in the general field of chemical toxicology. The award was established by the Division to honor the vision and contributions of individuals who worked to get to the division started in the mid-1990s. In addition to Loeppky, Fred Guengerich appointed the following TOXI members to serve on the committee:
- Tom Baillie, U. Wash.;
- Ian Blair, U. Penn;
- Judy Bolton, U. Ill. Chicago;
- Scott Grossman, BMS;
- Steve Hecht, U. Minn.;
- Paul Hollenberg, U. Mich.;
- William (Griff)Humphreys, BMS; and
- Larry Marnett, Vanderbilt U..
Details of the selection process have been established and can be obtained from Dick Loeppky.
Call for Papers: Human-Specific Drug Metabolites
Contributions are being sought for a special (February 2009) issue of Chemical Research in Toxicology (CRT) on research and regulatory aspects of human-specific drug metabolites and toxicity potential. These contributions should be considered as forum articles, which cover both original research and reviews/commentaries. Because all submitted articles will need to undergo peer review, the CRT deadline is November 1, 2008. Articles must be submitted via Paragon Plus, the ACS's online manuscript processing system (http://pubs.acs.org/paragonplus/submission/index.html). For further information contact Stephen Doster (crt@vanderbilt.edu).
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