UMass Amherst Researchers Win Big at 2024 Society of Toxicology Awards
Three doctoral students and one postdoctoral researcher who work in the environmental health science labs of faculty members Alexander Suvorov and Alicia Timme-Laragy received awards at the 2024 Society of Toxicology (SOT) 63rd Annual Meeting, held this past March in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Olatunbosun Arowolo, a public health doctoral student in the Suvorov Lab, received the Toxicologist of African Origin (TAO) Student Research Award for his presentation, “Identification of Sperm DNA Methylation Regions Sensitive to reprograming by environmental stressors: random epimutations of systemic change.”
Marjorie Marin, a public health doctoral student in the Timme-Laragy Lab, 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)” and received the Graduate Student Travel Award from the Northeast Society of Toxicology Chapter, as well as honorable mention for the Hispanic Organization of Toxicologists Special Interest Group Travel Award.
Kruuttika Satbhai, a postdoctoral research fellow in 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).” She placed first for the Association of Scientists of Indian Origin (ASIO) Dr. Dharm Singh Postdoctoral Fellow Best Abstract Award, and second for the Gabriel Plaa Mechanisms Award.
Madeline Tompach, a molecular and cell biology doctoral student in the Timme-Laragy Lab, presented her work, “PFOS exposure impacts pancreatic islet vascularization during development in zebrafish (Danio rerio),” and picked up three awards. Tompach placed first in the Graduate Student Travel Award from the Northeast Society of Toxicology Chapter, second in the Reproductive and Developmental Toxicology Specialty Section (RDTSS) Graduate Student Poster competition and received the Mechanisms Specialty Section Sheldon D. Murphy Graduate Travel Award.
“I’m incredibly proud of our students,” Timme-Laragy says. “These awards are a testament to the high caliber and quality of the research they are conducting here at UMass, and I am delighted that SOT has recognized them.”
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 U.S. and abroad. The society’s mission is to create a safer and healthier world by advancing the science and increasing the impact of toxicology.