Dr. Robert Roth received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Duke University and the PhD degree in biochemical toxicology from The Johns Hopkins University. After postdoctoral training at Yale University, he joined the faculty at Michigan State University in 1977, where he rose through the ranks to Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology. He is active in the Institute for Integrative Toxicology at MSU, for which he served for over a decade as Director of the multidisciplinary graduate program in Environmental and Integrative Toxicological Sciences and PI of the T32 Training Grant from NIEHS. In the Society of Toxicology (SOT), Dr. Roth has served as Chair of the Board of Publications, the Awards Committee and the Endowment Fund Board and as a member of several other committees, including the SOT Council. He has also been President of the Mechanisms and Food Safety Specialty Sections and has been Associate Editor of Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology and of the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.
Currently, Dr. Roth serves on SOT’s FUTURE Committee (Faculty United for Undergraduate Recruitment and Education). He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology and has served on its Board of Directors, and he has served as a member of NIH review groups, most recently on the XNDA Study Section. Dr. Roth has been the recipient of the Burroughs-Wellcome Toxicology Scholar Award, a Merit Award from the NIH, the Astra-Zeneca Traveling Lectureship Award from the SOT and a Distinguished Faculty Award from MSU. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed research articles and reviews in the areas of pulmonary and hepatic toxicology. For more than three decades, his research interest focused on inflammatory stress as a determinant of susceptibility to xenobiotic-induced liver injury. In this context, he and his colleagues have worked to develop animal and cell-based models for idiosyncratic, drug-induced liver injury, with the ultimate goal of understanding mechanisms of toxicity and developing assays that can predict more effectively which drug candidates are likely to cause these adverse reactions. In 2020, Dr. Roth became MSU Professor Emeritus and continues to be involved in consulting and toxicology education.