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The SOT Founders Award (for Outstanding Leadership in Toxicology), sponsored by the SOT Endowment Fund, recognizes a Full, Emeritus, or Retired Full member who has demonstrated outstanding leadership in fostering the role of toxicological sciences in safety decision-making through the development and/or application of state-of-the-art approaches that elucidate, with a high degree of confidence, the distinctions for humans between safe and unsafe levels of exposures to chemical and physical agents.

Jon C. Cook, PhD, DABT, ATS, is the recipient of the 2023 SOT Founders Award (for Outstanding Leadership in Toxicology) in recognition of his career in industry that has focused on human health and risk assessment supported by state-of-the-science research.

Dr. Cook earned his PhD in toxicology from North Carolina State University, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology (CIIT) in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. At CIIT, he began work on the toxic mechanisms of dioxin that would directly inform dioxin’s human health risk assessment. He then spent 11 years as a Research Toxicologist with DuPont-Haskell Laboratory for Toxicology and Industrial Medicine, starting his research on endocrine-related issues and carcinogenicity of chemicals. Dr. Cook, his laboratory, and his collaborators made several important contributions to the development of screening batteries and risk assessment methods for endocrine-disrupting chemicals at a period in the history of toxicology when the science was just evolving. He also was one of the first to identify mechanisms of carcinogenicity of peroxisome-proliferating chemicals and drugs and for perfluorinated chemicals, which remains a major issue in public health to this day.

Since 1998, Dr. Cook has been with Pfizer Inc. where he is Vice President of Scientific Research and Chief Toxicology Scientist. At Pfizer, Dr. Cook has extended his expertise in mechanisms of carcinogenicity to the study of hemangiosarcomas. He collaborated with major researchers in the field to develop a body of work that showed the lack of relevance of rodent hemangiosarcomas to human health and allowed rational regulation and use of drugs that caused rodent hemangiosarcomas. Dr. Cook also continued research in developmental and reproductive toxicology, contributing to several publications on this topic, particularly on COX inhibitors and their developmental toxicity. He continues to be active in the developmental and reproductive toxicology area with endocrine-related research publications and a recent book chapter.

Regarding his scientific leadership, Dr. Cook has both a broad and deep understanding of toxicological sciences ranging from traditional histopathology to state-of-the-art approaches such as microphysiological systems and machine learning. He has a compelling interest in novel science and has always been very supportive of new approaches even if their use is not immediately apparent. For example, Dr. Cook was a strong advocate of introducing what were once considered new molecular biology techniques, such as cloning and polymerase chain reaction, to help elucidate the mode of action for peroxisome proliferators. Dr. Cook, among others, used his considerable expertise and inclusive style to bring in a new way of thinking which led to an international consensus on mode of action and the associated species differences in the response to peroxisome proliferators and implementation of risk assessment guidelines to ensure safe levels of exposure.

Dr. Cook has published his research extensively from 1983 through 2022 in leading journals, the most recent on drug-induced liver injury that utilized machine learning to compare the predictive performance of in vitro assays versus physicochemical parameters.

Dr. Cook has contributed his expertise to SOT in numerous roles, including SOT 2011–2012 President, SOT Carcinogenesis Specialty Section President, SOT Workshop Session Co-Chair, and SOT Committee roles. He is Past President of HESI. He also has been active in the International Life Sciences Institute and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

To view all the 2023 Award recipients, visit the SOT website or read the SOT Awards Program PDF.