Melvin Andersen, PhD, CIH, DABT, FATS, is the recipient of the 2016 SOT Merit Award. Dr. Andersen serves as Distinguished Research Fellow, ScitoVation LLC, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, a newly created company emphasizing innovative cell based research. Prior to ScitoVation, he was at The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Over a 45-year career, he worked in government (US Navy, Department of Defense, US Environmental Protection Agency, EPA), industry (Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology), academia (Colorado State University), and consulting (ICF Kaiser Consulting).
Melvin Andersen Receives 2016 SOT Merit Award
Dr. Andersen’s research first transformed the field of toxicology by introducing physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling. Other long-term interests are in developing biologically realistic models of the uptake, distribution, metabolism, and biological effects of drugs and toxic chemicals and applying these models in safety assessments and quantitative health risk assessments.
As an educator, he has taught short-courses in PBPK modeling for more than 30 years. More recently, he developed courses on computational modeling of toxicity pathways. There are few people in the field that have not benefitted from his teaching in some way. Those fortunate enough to be guided by his enthusiastic classroom teaching have never forgotten his lessons. In addition, he has mentored 13 graduate students, supervised 13 postdoctoral researchers, and served on an additional 11 graduate student research committees.
In the regulatory arena, Dr. Andersen served on or chaired many review panels on behalf of EPA and other agencies, both domestic and international, regarding many chemicals of environmental interest such as PFOA, TCDD, benzene, perchlorate, butadiene, formaldehyde, 1,1-dichloroethylene, and JP-8 jet fuel toxicity. He also served on several National Academy of Sciences committees and was a contributor to the 2007 National Academy of Sciences report, “Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and a Strategy.”
Dr. Andersen is author/co-author of 400 peer-reviewed publications, 70 book chapters, and 30 technical reports. His work has more than 18,000 citations—a clear indicator of the value of his contributions. In recognition of his scientific achievements, he has received numerous awards including the Frank Blood, Achievement, Arnold J. Lehman, and Best Paper of the Year in Toxicological Sciences from the SOT, and numerous Best Paper Awards from different SOT Specialty Sections. He remains active in toxicology research with a focus on developing case studies to show the 21st century vision for toxicity testing/safety assessment in practice with specific cellular signaling pathways.