March 21, 2022
Posted by Dr. Mel Andersen, Senior Research Fellow, ScitoVation.
ScitoVation is pleased to announce that Senior Research Fellow, Dr. Jeffrey W. Fisher (Jeff) is the recipient of the 2022 Arnold J. Lehman Award from the Society of Toxicology (SOT). SOT is a professional and scholarly organization of scientists from academic institutions, government, and industry with membership from both the United States and many other countries. SOT’s mission is to create a safer and healthier world by advancing science and increasing the impact of toxicology (www.toxicology.org). The Arnold J. Lehman Award recognizes individuals who have made major contributions to risk assessment and the regulation of chemical and pharmaceuticals. The award is presented at the annual SOT meeting, with attendance of between 5000 and 10000.
The award citation notes Dr. Fisher’s exceptional, consistent, career-long body of work on physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) and biologically based dose response (BBDR) modeling tools that have improved risk assessment with a variety of high-visibility risk-based regulatory decisions by both the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) and the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA). All this is true, but I have had the remarkable good fortune of Jeff’s friendship for over 45 years, back to the very start of his toxicology training. Before starting PhD studies, then Sgt. Fisher was studying behavioral toxicity of trichloroethylene in fish, and I was beginning my own career in toxicology as a Lieutenant in the US Navy Toxicology Detachment. His lab was on the first floor and the Navy Detachment was on the second floor of a research building at Wright-Patterson AFB (WPAFB). When Jeff went off to do PhD training at Miami University in Ohio, I served on his thesis committee. You never know what paths your PhD students will follow, and Jeff’s has been remarkable. In his 40-year career, Jeff has done important work in toxicology and risk assessment as a civilian employee for the Air Force at WP-AFB, as Professor and Head, Department of Environmental Health Science, College of Public Health at the University of Georgia and as a Research Toxicologist at the National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR), US FDA.
Here are a few career highlights. At WPAFB, Jeff pioneered the use of life-stage PBPK modeling studying the kinetics of trichloroethylene and its metabolites during gestation and lactation – work that led to the broad acceptance of these tools in risk assessment. At the University of Georgia, Jeff made extensive contributions with BBDR modeling of thyroid hormone disruption by perchlorate, approaches that now offer promise of improving risk assessment approaches for a variety of compounds suspected of affecting thyroid function. At NCTR, Jeff continued modeling the effects of perchlorate on thyroid function in pregnant women, did pharmacokinetic modeling studies to better characterize the potential risk of bisphenol A in infants, and assisted US FDA regulatory scientists in the pharmacokinetic analyses of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). After retiring from NCTR, in 2021 Jeff joined us at ScitoVation as a Senior Research Fellow.