Dr. Judith Prescott is a toxicologist and board-certified veterinary clinical pathologist with over 25 years of experience in nonclinical drug development. Dr. Prescott earned her DVM and completed her PhD/residency in veterinary clinical pathology at Louisiana State University, School of Veterinary Medicine, and subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at CIIT Centers for Health Research. Dr. Prescott is a Diplomat of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists. Dr. Prescott has held leadership positions in nonclinical safety at Merck & Co., Inc and GlaxoSmithKline plc, most recently as Associate Vice President and Head of Program Discovery and Development at Merck leading nonclinical discovery and development for all programs across the Merck portfolio. Following her retirement from Merck, Dr. Prescott joined Aclairo Pharmaceutical Development Group, Inc. as a principal consultant providing expertise in nonclinical development on a part-time basis.
During her industry career, Judith has been actively involved with the IQ Consortium DruSafe Leadership Group, serving as Merck representative to DruSafe and IQ Board of Directors as well as co-chair on DruSafe working groups. This included leadership of an industry initiative advocating for international regulatory guidance enabling expedited nonclinical development of medicines, while maintaining standards of safety for severely debilitating or life-threatening non-oncology indications with high unmet medical need. Dr. Prescott has presented this proposal at an AAADV/FDA Workshop in Washington D.C. as an invited speaker (2018) and at US FDA, Office of New Drugs Division Directors, as part of an FDA program on “Promoting Effective Drug Development Programs: Opportunities and Priorities for FDA's Office of New Drugs” (2019). Dr. Prescott additionally chaired a session on “Facilitating Access: Patients’ Perspectives on a Streamlined Development Approach for Treatments for Severely Debilitating or Life-Threatening Diseases” at the DIA Global Annual Meeting (2019). Dr. Prescott is a member of ACT and was co-chair and presenter for a session on “Evaluation of Therapeutics for the Treatment of Severely Debilitating or Life-Threatening Indications, Including COVID-19 Vaccines and Therapeutics” at the ACT Annual Meeting in 2020. In 2021, Dr. Prescott was honored to receive an IQ Consortium recognition award for outstanding contributions to DruSafe working groups.
Mildred Christian Women’s Leadership in Toxicology Award
Lorrene Buckley
Dr. Lorrene Buckley is a board-certified toxicologist with over 30 years of experience in the active practice of toxicology. In her current position as a Vice President at Eli Lilly & Company, she is responsible for the design and execution of nonclinical safety assessments and for all nonclinical aspects of global regulatory submissions and interactions for drugs in the development and commercialization phases.
Dr. Buckley obtained her MS at the University of Arizona and PhD at UNC, Chapel Hill. Her diversity of professional experience as a toxicologist is reflected in her work spanning basic and applied toxicology research (CIIT, RTI), risk assessment in the chemical and agrochemical industry (FMC Corp), and safety assessment of pharmaceuticals (Sphinx, Eli Lilly).
Dr. Buckley has served in leadership positions with the following professional toxicology organizations: American Board of Toxicology (ABT Board, 2004–2007); the Academy of Toxicological Sciences (ATS Board, 2015–2017, and Presidential chain, 2021–2024); the Society of Toxicology (SOT Council, 2012–2016); and the American College of Toxicology (ACT Council, 2009–2012, and Presidential chain, 2018–2021). Within the Innovation and Quality (IQ) Consortium for Pharmaceutical Development, she has actively contributed to various inter-industry initiatives as a member of the DruSafe Leadership Group.
Dr. Buckley frequently lectures in various educational and professional settings and has authored numerous journal articles and book chapters concerning approaches to pharmaceutical safety assessment and the toxicologic assessment of environmental contaminants. Her coaching and mentorship of early- and late-stage professionals internally at Lilly and externally through professional society connections represents an important contribution to the success and growth of the field of toxicology.
Service Award
David Compton
Dr. David Compton is a board-certified toxicologist with over 35 years of combined academic, CRO, and pharmaceutical experience including GLP study directing, safety pharmacology, toxicology, and nonclinical drug development. He started his career as assistant/associate professor at Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University. Subsequently, David gained over 25 years of experience in industry positions which included Huntingdon Life Sciences, Schering-Plough Research Institute (6 years), Sanofi, and PTC Therapeutics. While David has served as a GLP study director and project team toxicologist, he is also a recognized subject matter expert in gene therapy and abuse liability. David has experience developing and achieving marketing approval for gene therapy programs and published four gene therapy manuscripts (one as first author) during 2020–2023. David has extensive experience in nonclinical abuse liability assessment, including being the corporate subject matter expert for a large pharmaceutical company, a founding member of the Cross-Company Abuse Liability Council, and interacting with FDA Controlled Substance Staff. He was the editor for a 2015 industry-oriented book Nonclinical Assessment of Abuse Potential for New Pharmaceuticals. As part of service in multiple scientific organizations, David is notably a Past President of the American College of Toxicology (ACT) and member of the Editorial Board for the International Journal of Toxicology since 2012. David has served ACT continuously from 2007 to 2024 and has been involved in the following capacities: Nominating Committee, Awards Committee, Council (two consecutive three-year terms), Vice President, President-Elect, President, Past President, Copyright Working Group, Program Committee, and is currently an ACT representative to the Program Committee of the 2025 International Congress of Toxicology meeting.
Carol Lemire Unsung Hero Award
Pallavi Limaye
Pallavi Limaye, PhD, DABT, currently serves as the Director of Toxicology and Head of Nonclinical Safety at Zenas BioPharma. Dr. Limaye received her PhD in toxicology from The University of Louisiana at Monroe and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC). Previously, she has worked at Xenometrics LLC and MRIGlobal in general toxicology and DMPK, and at Sekisui XenoTech (later BioIVT) in the fields of drug metabolism and drug-drug interactions. She is also an adjunct faculty at KUMC and teaches industrial toxicology and DMPK to graduate students. She has published several research articles and book chapters focused on toxicology, DMPK, and liver pathobiology. Dr. Limaye has had a long-standing involvement with ACT, which started during her graduate student days since 1999. She has served on ACT’s Program Committee and eLearning Subcommittee in the past and currently serves as Chair of the eLearning Subcommittee. As an avid supporter of professional education at ACT, Dr. Limaye has presented many Continuing Education courses for ACT annual meetings. She also serves as a reviewer for the International Journal of Toxicology. Dr. Limaye encourages participation of the next generation of toxicologists within ACT and actively recruits new members to the College.
Early Career Professional Award
Jessica Sapiro
Dr. Jessica Sapiro is a project toxicologist at Blueprint Medicines Corporation where she supports discovery, development, and marketed stage programs in oncology and non-oncology indications. Previously, she was a project toxicologist at Takeda Development Center Americas, Inc supporting programs in oncology, gastrointestinal, and rare disease therapeutic areas. Jessica also held toxicology roles of increasing responsibility at Sage Therapeutics and Allergan. Jessica received her PhD in pharmacology and toxicology from the University of Arizona. Jessica has been a member of the American College of Toxicology since 2015 and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology.
Jessica is an active member of ACT and serves on the Membership Committee (December 2023–present). Previously, she completed terms on the Social Media Subcommittee (December 2022–November 2023) and the Early Career Professional Subcommittee (ECPSC) (December 2019–November 2022), where she served as Chair in her third year. Amongst many activities, Jessica led the ECPSC development of talking points for new member welcome calls to early career professionals and developed an application process for selection of new ECPSC members. Jessica has also been an active participant at annual meetings, having been a chair and/or speaker for several sessions and led or participated in the ECPSC speed networking and social events.
Award for Best Paper Published in International Journal of Toxicology
Donahue DA, Ballesteros C, Maruggi G, Glover C, Ringenberg MA, Marquis M, Ben Abdeljelil N, Ashraf A, Rodriguez LA, Stokes AH. Nonclinical Safety Assessment of Lipid Nanoparticle-and Emulsion-Based Self-Amplifying mRNA Vaccines in Rats. Int J Toxicol. 2023 Jan–42(1):37–49. doi: 10.1177/10915818221138781. Epub 2022 Dec 6. PMID: 36472205
2023 North American Graduate Fellowship
Presented to:
Rahul Kumar, North Carolina State University
2024 North American Travel Grants
Presented to:
Olamide Adelusi, University of Kansas Medical Center
Voke Tonia Aminone, University of Mississippi
Olatunbosun Arowolo, University of Massachusetts Amherst
