2023 ACT Award Recipients

Dr. Paul B. Watkins is the Howard Q. Ferguson Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. He is a clinical hepatologist and an accomplished basic and translational investigator in the fields of drug metabolism and hepatotoxicity. According to ISIhighlycited.com, he is one of the most cited authors in the field of pharmacology. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including the 2013 Agilent Therapeutic Frontiers Award, the 2015 Rawls-Palmer Award for Progress in Medicine from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and the 2018 Career Award from the Toxicology Section of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. He is the founder of the DILI-sim Initiative, which is a public-private consortium developing a quantitative systems toxicology (QST) model to explain and predict liver safety liabilities of new drug candidates. Dr. Watkins currently co-chairs the Steering Committee and chairs the Genetics Committee for the U.S. Drug Induced Liver Injury Network funded by the National Institutes of Health. He is a current member of a Reagan-Udall Foundation Committee advising the FDA on novel alternative methods to avoid animal use in drug development.

Leigh Ann Burns Naas is an independent consultant and President of Magnolia Toxicology Consulting, LLC. Prior to launching her company, she was Vice President and Head of Nonclinical Safety & Pathobiology at Gilead Sciences, previously she served as Drug Safety Therapeutic Area Leader for Antivirals and Infectious Disease (2001–2006) and Oncology (2007–2011) at Pfizer, and was Immunotoxicology Lab Supervisor then Group Leader for Product Toxicology at Dow Corning Corporation (1994–2001). Throughout her career, her work has focused on strategic aspects and the design of safety programs to support chemical product development and registration, and the clinical development and licensure for small molecules and biotherapeutics, including vaccines.

Leigh Ann is a member of the Editorial Board for the International Journal of Toxicology and Journal of Immunotoxicology, and the editor of two volumes of Comprehensive Toxicology, 3rd Edition (Immune and Hematopoietic Systems), with the fourth edition of these volumes underway. She has been active in the ILSI HESI Immunotoxicology Technical Committee (2001–2011) and the IQ Consortium (Board of Directors, DruSafe; 2013-2019). She has demonstrated a long commitment to promoting advancements in basic and applied toxicology and the impact of toxicological sciences on human and environmental health across multiple scientific organizations and in the literature and training/education of the next generation of toxicologists. She is a Past President of the American College of Toxicology, the Society of Toxicology, and the Academy of Toxicological Sciences. She is a European Registered Toxicologist (UK) and is a former member of the Board of Directors of the American Board of Toxicology. Leigh Ann received her doctorate degree in pharmacology and toxicology from the Medical College of Virginia/VCU in 1992 with an emphasis in immunotoxicology and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in biochemical and molecular immunology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.

Nancy Bordelon is a board-certified toxicologist with over 20 years of experience in nonclinical drug development. Dr. Bordelon received her PhD from Texas A&M University in Toxicology and completed her post-doctoral fellowship with the National Toxicology Program. She is the Senior Vice President of Nonclinical Development at Sumitovant Biopharma where she is responsible for technical and strategic leadership of investigational drugs in development focusing on toxicology, pharmacology, and ADME/PK. Dr. Bordelon has been actively involved in ACT through her elected roles as Councilor (2008 to 2011; 2013 to 2016), and Secretary (2018 to 2020), as well serving as a speaker and chairing multiple symposia and CE courses. Dr Bordelon has also served on the Continuing Education, Program, Membership, Early Career Professional Outreach, and Communication Committees. Dr. Bordelon is especially proud of her leadership role in the formation of the ECPO Committee and in the creation of the ACT mentorship program, which has been successful in establishing connections and opportunities for ACT membership. Dr. Bordelon is honored to receive the ACT Service Award and is looking forward to continuing to contribute to ACT.

Caroline Moore, DVM, PhD, is a scientist in the Disease Investigations department at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance (SDZWA), where she focuses on veterinary toxicology both locally and globally. Dr. Moore earned her BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from UCSC, assisting with necropsies and research on the decline of the southern sea otter. She earned her PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology and her DVM at UC Davis as a VSTP Fellow while on an EPA STAR grant investigating how globally present harmful algal blooms have toxic effects on the nervous system. She spent the following year as a NIEHS postdoctoral fellow at UCLA researching how environmental contaminates may cause reproductive toxicity through epigenetics, and the next two years as the SDZWA Steel Endowed Pathology Fellow, establishing successful ways to incorporate toxicology into wildlife conservation field programs. Caroline has been an active member of the American College of Toxicology for almost ten years. She is an ACT North American Graduate Fellow recipient (2014-16) and North American Travel Grant recipient (2017, 2019). She served ACT as the ECP Subcommittee Chair during her ECPSC tenure (2018-2021), and she is currently a member of the ACT Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Subcommittee (2020-2023). At ACT annual meetings, she has presented her research, co-chaired and been a speaker for two workshops on mentoring and career transitions, and she hosted the first ACT “Scientists in the Spotlight” podcast series.

Sathish JG, Bhatt S, DaSilva JK, Flynn D, Jenkinson S, Kalgutkar AS, Liu M, Manickam B, Pinkstaff J, Reagan WJ, Shirai N, Shoieb AM, Sirivelu M, Vispute S, Vitsky A, Walters K, Wisialowski TA, Updyke LW.
“Comprehensive Nonclinical Safety Assessment of Nirmatrelvir Supporting Timely Development of the SARS-COV-2 Antiviral Therapeutic, Paxlovid™.” Int J Toxicol 2022 Aug;41(4):276-290. doi: 10.1177/10915818221095489. Epub 2022 May 21. PMID: 35603517; PMCID: PMC9125132.

Sabrina Rahman Archie, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center

Rahul Kumar, Louisiana State University

Aikaterini Stavrou, NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Richa Lamichhane, Louisiana State University

Brittany Rickard, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Oladimeji Aladelokun, Yale University

Ramji Kandel, Texas Tech University

Manasi Kotulkar, University of Kansas Medical Center

Mellessa Miller, University of Indiana School of Medicine/NIOSH

Vingie Ng, University of Iowa

Adedoyin Adeoye, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Sabina Burla, Invitrolize, Belgium

Cynthia Ikeji, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Chijioke Onah, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Chiagoziem Anariochi Otuechere, Redeemer's University, Nigeria

Ganna Shayakhmetova, SI Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology NMA of Ukraine, Ukraine