The Society of Toxicology 52nd Annual Meeting and ToxExpo will feature more than 3,000 presentations including featured lectures and late-breaking abstracts. Some of the highlights include the following:
- Plenary Opening Lecture: Nobel Laureate Bruce A. Beutler will present "Genetic Analysis of Innate Immune Sensing," Monday, March 11, 8:00 am–9:00 am. He is a Regental Professor and Director of the Center for the Genetics of Host Defense at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Beutler will be inducted as a 2013 SOT Honorary member at the Sunday Award Ceremony.
- Keynote Medical Research Council (MRC) Lecture: Jeremy K. Nicholson will present "Phenotyping the Patient Journey: Making Systems Medicine Work in the Real World," Wednesday, March 13, 8:00 am–9:00 am. Dr. Nicholson is the head of the Department of Surgery and Cancer at the Imperial College, London, United Kingdom. He will be inducted as a 2013 SOT Honorary member at the Sunday Awards Ceremony.
- Frontiers for Toxicology:The Scientific Program Committee is pleased to sponsor the inaugural Frontiers for Toxicology Session, "Systems and Computational Biology As Foundations for Toxicology Research," on Tuesday, March 12 from 9:00 am–11:45 am. This new session has been designed to focus on a cutting-edge subject that will impact basic and applied toxicology research.The speakers in this session include: Trey Ideker, University of California San Diego; Avi Ma’ayan, Mount Sinai School of Medicine; Laszlo A. Urban, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research; and Robert F. Murphy, Carnegie Mellon University.
- SOT/Eurotox Debate: Each year the SOT Annual Meeting includes a debate that continues a tradition that originated in the early 1990s in which leading toxicologists advocate opposing sides of an issue of great toxicological importance.This year our debaters will address the proposition: "In the Near Foreseeable Future, Much of Toxicity Testing Can Be Replaced by Computational Approaches." Debaters Rory Connolly, US EPA, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and George Loizou,Health and Safety Laboratory, Buxton, United Kingdom, will exchange perspectives on Monday, March 11, 4;45 pm–6:00 pm.
- Two Regional Interest Sessions: “Toxicological Challenges in Food Production in Texas and the Gulf Coast” presented on Monday, March 11, 9:15 am–12:00 noon and “Assessment of Environmental, Dietary, and Biological Risk Factors Impacting Liver Cancer Incidence in Texas” presented on Wednesday, March 13, 1:30 pm–4:15 pm.