Conferences & Awards

Robert A. Scala Award 2003

 

 

This Year's Scala Award Recipient

 

James S. MacDonald, Ph.D., is the Senior Vice President of Drug Safety and Metabolism at Schering-Plough Research Institute. Dr. MacDonald received his doctoral degree in Toxicology from the University of Cincinnati. He completed his undergraduate work in chemistry and biology at Depauw University and was appointed as a Diplomate in the American Board of Toxicology in 1980.

 

Dr. MacDonald has contributed significantly to pharmaceutical toxicology in three major areas: liver toxicity of statins in rats and mice; the testicular effects of finasteride in rats; and most recently, the development of alternative testing for carcinogenicity utilizing transgenic and knockout mouse strains. Dr. MacDonald's most recent active participation in research was leading the International Life Sciences Institute/Health and Environmental Services Institute (ILSI/HESI) project on alternative carcinogenicity testing. He provided the leadership in detailing protocols and served truly as the principle investigator of an enormous project involving numerous companies, government agencies and academic institutions and an extraordinarily large number of individuals and laboratories. This work resulted in numerous publications and has helped to address concerns of the pharmaceutical industry related to the use of these compounds and has furthered the discussion as to the future role these assays might play in regulatory decision making. Dr. MacDonald serves on many national and international expert and advisory committees and has published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles.

 

The Robert A. Scala Award and Lectureship

The Scala Award and Lectureship is named for Robert A. Scala, former director of the Research and Environmental Health Division at Exxon Corp. Dr. Scala, who is well known for his work on the toxicity of gasoline components and chemical mixtures, is a past president of the Society of Toxicology and chair or member of a wide range of committees for the National Academy of Sciences, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and the National Toxicology Program. Dr. Scala has actively supported academic toxicology as a faculty member of the Institute of Environmental Medicine at New York University, the Medical College of Virginia, and the Joint Graduate Program in Toxicology at Rutgers and UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. For all who have been fortunate to work with him, Dr. Scala has served as a role model. Particularly notable has been his fierce integrity in upholding the finest traditions of the discipline. The goal of this annual award and lectureship is to honor the work of exceptional toxicologists in industry and to promote continued outstanding scientific contributions by industrial organizations. The award is presented annually by EOHSI and the awardee and the date of the ceremony are announced at the annual meeting of the Society of Toxicology.