I. Glenn Sipes received his PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Pittsburgh. After serving as a staff fellow at the National Institutes of Health, he was recruited in 1973 to the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona with appointments in the Departments of Pharmacology and Anesthesiology. During the next 39 years, he served as Professor of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology, and Toxicology; Head of the Departments of Pharmacology and Toxicology and Pharmacology; and as founding Director of the Center for Toxicology and of the Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center. Upon his retirement in 2011, he was appointed Professor Emeritus. He remains active in toxicology as a technical advisor to the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives for the World Health Organization/Food and Agriculture Organization and as a member and chair of the Expert Panel of the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials.
2016 SOT Distinguished Toxicology Scholar Award Recipient I.Glenn Sipes
Dr. Sipes’ research interests have focused primarily on the disposition/metabolism of chemicals and how these events relate to toxic outcomes. His early work brought attention to the bioactivation and covalent binding of bromobenzene, CCl4 and CHCl3, as related to liver injury. He and his colleagues at Arizona developed the first animal models of halothane-hepatotoxicity, which were based on the formation of reductive metabolites. Later work on vitamin A potentiation of chemical-induced liver injury helped establish the key role of Kupffer cells in the progression of liver injury. Dr. Sipes worked for over two decades on National Institute of Health Sciences grants studying the disposition/metabolism of chemicals of interest to the National Toxicology Program. His studies produced many novel findings as to how various chemicals are metabolized. Of note was the extensive work on the species variation in the metabolism and ovarian toxicity of 4-vinylcyclohexene.
Over the span of his career, Dr. Sipes was the major advisor for 42 MS Toxicology and 30 PhD candidates as well as 27 postdoctoral fellows. Moreover, he was a mentor to numerous junior faculty. Many of these trainees and young faculty members have established impressive careers in toxicology.
Dr. Sipes has been active within the Society since joining in 1977. He served on the Membership Committee, Board of Publications, and as Editor of Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, which was the official journal of SOT from 1961–2002. He served on SOT Council as Councilor, Secretary, and 1993–1994 President and was an early officer of the Mechanisms Specialty Section. Beyond SOT, he has served on many editorial boards and as the President of both the International Union of Toxicology and of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences. He was selected as a Burroughs-Wellcome Toxicology Scholar in 1985.