This award, 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.
For her five decades of leadership in advancing the science of organophosphate toxicology, her seminal work on species and population differences in susceptibility and detoxification, and her influential role in translating mechanistic research into regulatory decision-making and countermeasure development, Janice E. Chambers, PhD, DABT, ATS, AAAS Fellow, is the 2026 recipient of the SOT Founders Award (for Outstanding Leadership in Toxicology).
Dr. Chambers earned her BS in biology from the University of San Francisco in 1969 and her PhD in animal physiology from Mississippi State University in 1973. She then joined Mississippi State University, where she progressed from Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Zoologist to Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor, initiating and building the university’s toxicology teaching and research program. Since 1995, she served as a William L. Giles Distinguished Professor and, since 1991, as Director of the Center for Environmental Health Sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine.
Dr. Chambers’s research has consistently focused on anticholinesterase toxicology, especially organophosphate insecticides and chemical threat agents, with an emphasis on species-related and population-based differences in susceptibility and detoxification. More recently, her work has centered on the discovery and characterization of novel brain-penetrating oxime antidotes capable of preserving brain structure and function after organophosphate poisoning, leading to US and European patents and the lead compound being licensed for development.
Across a career supported by more than $30 million in competitive research funding, primarily from the US National Institutes of Health and the US Department of Defense, Dr. Chambers has authored over 130 peer-reviewed publications and numerous book chapters and edited volumes. Her research has clarified key biochemical mechanisms that determine organophosphate toxicity, including target-site interactions with toxicants, bioactivation and detoxication pathways, and age- and species-dependent differences in cholinesterase inhibition and recovery. These insights have informed human health risk assessments and safety standards for organophosphate insecticides and related compounds and have provided a scientific foundation for evaluating cumulative risk from chemicals with common mechanisms of action.
Dr. Chambers’s expertise has been widely sought by federal agencies and national advisory bodies, where she has played a prominent role in shaping policies and guidelines related to pesticide safety and environmental health. She has provided expert guidance to numerous federal agencies, which included service on multiple National Institutes of Health study sections; on advisory panels for the US Environmental Protection Agency, such as the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act Scientific Advisory Panel and the Human Studies Review Board; and as Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the CDC/ATSDR National Center for Environmental Health. She also has served on National Research Council and Institute of Medicine committees addressing methylmercury, chemical warfare agents, and Agent Orange. Through these roles, she has been instrumental in integrating mechanistic toxicology and quantitative risk assessment into decisions that protect human health.
A dedicated educator and mentor, Dr. Chambers has trained more than 50 graduate students and numerous undergraduate researchers, many of whom have gone on to impactful careers in academia, government, and industry. Within SOT, she has provided sustained leadership through service on the Continuing Education, Education, Membership, Awards, and Endowment Fund Committees; as an officer of the South Central Regional Chapter; and as President of both the Neurotoxicology and Mixtures Specialty Sections. Her contributions have been recognized with honors such as the SOT Education Award, the American Chemical Society International Award for Research in Agrochemicals, the Burroughs Wellcome Toxicology Scholar Award, and multiple institutional awards for research excellence.
Through her pioneering mechanistic research, her exceptional record of service on national advisory bodies, and her long-standing leadership in toxicology education and training, Dr. Chambers exemplifies the outstanding leadership in toxicology that is honored by the SOT Founders Award.
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