EHS Lab Members Receive 2024 Society of Toxicology Awards
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Four researchers working in the environmental health science labs of faculty members Alexander Suvorov and Alicia Timme-Laragy received awards at the Society of Toxicology’s (SOT) 63rd annual meeting held this spring in Salt Lake City, UT. The award recipients include three doctoral students and one postdoctoral researcher.
"I'm incredibly proud of our students!” says Timme-Laragy. “These awards are a testament to the high caliber and quality of the research they are conducting here at UMass, and I'm delighted that SOT has recognized them."
Doctoral candidate Olatunbosun Arowolo, who works in the Suvorov Lab, received the Toxicologist of African Origin (TAO) Student Research Award. His poster presentation was titled "Identification of Sperm DNA Methylation Regions Sensitive to reprograming by environmental stressors: random epimutations of systemic change."
Doctoral candidate Marjorie Marin, who works in the Timme-Laragy Lab, received two awards:
- the Graduate Student Travel Award from the Northeast Society of Toxicology Chapter, and
- the Hispanic Organization of Toxicologists Special Interest Group Travel Award (honorable mention).
Marin presented a poster titled “Investigating the effects of developmental PFOS exposures on pancreatic function and its modulation by the Nrf2a pathway in zebrafish (Danio rerio).”
Doctoral candidate Madeline Tompach, who also works in the Timme-Laragy Lab, picked up three awards:
- 1st place, Graduate Student Travel Award from the Northeast Society of Toxicology Chapter;
- 2nd place, Reproductive and Developmental Toxicology Specialty Section (RDTSS) Graduate Student Poster competition; and
- the Mechanisms Specialty Section Sheldon D. Murphy Graduate Travel Award.
Tompach presented her work titled “PFOS exposure impacts pancreatic islet vascularization during development in zebrafish (Danio rerio).”
Postdoctoral researcher Kruuttika Satbhai of the Timme-Laragy Lab brought home two awards for her work on “Single-cell RNA sequencing to evaluate tissue-specific transcriptomic changes induced by perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) in the embryonic zebrafish (Danio rerio).” They are:
- 2nd place, Gabriel Plaa Mechanisms Award, and
- 1st place, Association of Scientists of Indian Origin (ASIO) Dr. Dharm Singh Postdoctoral Fellow Best Abstract Award.
Founded in 1961, the Society of Toxicology is a professional and scholarly organization of scientists from academic institutions, government, and industry representing the great variety of scientists who practice toxicology in the US and abroad. The Society’s mission is to create a safer and healthier world by advancing the science and increasing the impact of toxicology.