Submitted by Phil Wexler and Alessandro Venosa
Your Chance at Fame—Become a 2014 Tox ShowDown Contestant!
So you think you’re a hot shot toxicologist? Interested in testing your wits against SOT colleagues who have no less of an opinion of themselves? If so, and you don’t mind being interrogated with questions that run the gamut from serious science to frivolous fantasy, SOT’s boisterous annual Tox ShowDown may be just up your alley, and it’s baaack with revenge, at the SOT 53rd Annual Meeting in Phoenix, on Tuesday, March 25 at 7:30 pm.
Although we are holding it in the air–conditioned comfort of the Sheraton Hotel, sweat is sure to trickle down your brow no less profusely than if you were standing under the noonday Phoenix sun, as you struggle to answer challenging, enigmatic, and sometimes simply unanswerable questions. But you can do it; you know you can; we know you can; you better…or else. If you are among the hardy and the foolhardy, the wise and the wiseguys, or the unflappable and the flabbergasted, we want you to volunteer as a contestant. Let’s face it, you’ve done crazier things in your life or, if you haven’t, here’s your chance.Think of it as a toxicologist coming of age quest. You’ll be assigned to one of three teams of three players each—the Endocrine Disruptors, Free Radicals, or Toxic Metabolites.
Some sample questions from the 2012 game include the following:
By some accounts, the word “toxicology” derives from the Greek “toxon,” which is one component of an ancient two-piece weapon. What is the English name of this weapon?
What protein binds metals such as cadmium and zinc in the liver and kidneys?
Christopher P. Wild of the International Agency for Research on Cancer coined this term to encompass the concept, now gaining an increasing prominence in toxicology, of life-course environmental exposures from conception to death. What is the term?
For more information, see the report on the 2013 ShowDown.
Closet or repressed comedians especially welcome.
Please send expressions of interest with your full name, affiliation, SOT Regional Chapter, Special Interest Group, or Specialty Section membership(s) if any, contact information, and a brief statement about why you want to join (the competition for slots this year will be stiff, so make it good) as soon as possible (beat the rush), but no later than November 1, to Phil Wexler or Alessandro Venosa. Tox ShowDown is sponsored by the Graduate Student Leadership Committee.