2015 ASCCT Board of Directors Election

Question Title

* 1. Please choose ONLY FOUR individuals for the open spaces on the ASCCT Board. Individuals serve 3-year terms. Officer elections will be held after a new board is elected.

Marilyn Aardema, PhD

Dr. Marilyn Aardema is President of Marilyn Aardema Consulting, LLC. She is a globally recognized leader with over 30 years experience in the area of genetic toxicology and human safety assessment. Dr. Aardema is skilled in identifying and responding to emerging issues, complex problems, and strategy setting. She has over 90 publications on topics including thresholds, aneuploidy, germ cell genotoxicity, mechanisms of genotoxicity, new assay development/validation with a focus on non-animal approaches, toxicogenomics, cell transformation, performance of genetic toxicology assays, and regulatory guidelines. Dr. Aardema provides genetic toxicology consulting expertise in a variety of areas including regulatory/expert groups, consumer products, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals, contract laboratory testing. Previously, she was a Principal Scientist at The Procter & Gamble Co. Cincinnati Ohio in the Product Safety organization responsible for genetic toxicology safety assessments, developing new test methods including novel non-animal assays for assessing genetic toxicology, working on global teams to develop harmonized scientific and regulatory guidelines, and toxicogenomics. Recently, she was on the ECVAM Validation Management Team for cell transformation assays that have now been written into OECD technical guidance documents, she has led/participated in numerous IWGT (International Working Group on Genotoxicity Testing) groups to harmonize assays, testing strategies, guidelines; co-leader of previous ILSI-HESI Genotoxicity Toxicogenomics project; current member of ILSI-HESI Genotoxicity Steering Team; previous lead of COLIPA (now CosEU) cosmetic association project on development/validation of 3D skin genotoxicity assays; US OECD expert; participant in past ICH guideline development for pharmaceutical testing; member of past ECETOC task forces. Marilyn received her Ph.D. in Genetics from The University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and B.S. from Hope College.

Statement of Purpose:
My career has been consistent with ASCCT’s mission of developing approaches to improve toxicology testing while addressing the 3Rs, which makes me well suited for helping ASCCT accomplish its goals. I will use my experience to help ASCCT continue to grow in the US and globally, as a premier organization providing a forum for furthering non-animal-based toxicology methods. I will apply my knowledge of future scientific directions, along with expertise in participating in influential multi-disciplinary teams and global scientific/policy expert groups towards assisting in the design of ASCCT’s annual meetings and activities that will support the development and acceptance of 3R’s approaches.

Gertrude-Emilia Costin, PhD, MBA

Dr. Gertrude-Emilia Costin is a Senior Toxicologist and Study Director at the Institute for In Vitro Sciences, Inc. (IIVS) since 2007, where she is in charge of a wide range of safety and efficacy commercial studies and of several Research & Development projects. She is also involved in educational workshops focused on non-animal research and testing using a wide array of in vitro assay systems to assist the needs of pharmaceutical, cosmetic, chemical, and personal care industry. She received her Ph.D. (Cum laude) from the Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy in 2001, and her MBA from Aspen University in 2010. Dr. Costin was a postdoctoral fellow at The National Cancer Institute Laboratory of Cell Biology, Pigment Cell Biology Section (2001-2005) and a Senior Scientist at Global R&D, Avon Products (2005-2007). She is author of 31 peer-reviewed articles and 3 book chapters. She has been a member of the Society of Toxicology (SOT) since 2011. In 2008, Dr. Costin became the Editor of the PanAmerican Society for Pigment Cell Research Newsletter, a position she currently holds. In 2015, she became a member of the National Capital Area Chapter – Society of Toxicology Executive Board and she is the current Editor of the Chapter’s Newsletter.

Statement of purpose:
I am a Senior Toxicologist and Study Director at the Institute for In Vitro Sciences, Inc. (IIVS). Based on my background and experience accumulated during my membership in other scientific societies, I believe I can contribute to the advancement of the toxicology field with a concentration on in vitro methods through the means of the ASCCT which I joined in 2014. I am familiar with the current methods used in the field and have the ability to not only provide training but also to build testing strategies and provide in-depth data analysis for the end-users of the results generated by in vitro assays. Beyond the 8-year expertise in in vitro toxicology, my background is cell- and molecular biology oriented through my PhD and post-doctoral training. Furthermore, I have a good understanding of industry having worked previously for a global cosmetic company (Avon Products). I am currently the Editor of two Newsletters for the PanAmerican Society for Pigment Cell Research and the National Capital Area Chapter – Society of Toxicology. I am a current member of the Executive Board of NCAC-SOT and also acted as Council member of PASPCR Board from 2012-2014. As part of these Societies, I participate(d) in the regular Council’s meetings and have been part of the team involved in updating/amending the bylaws of PASPCR in 2013. Finally, I would be happy to use my expertise as reviewer for multiple peer-reviewed journals for the benefit of ASCCT and also my experience as member of the National Organizing Committee for the 15th PASCR 2009 Annual Meeting.

Marie C. Fortin, PhD, DABT

Marie received her PhD in Public Health & Toxicology from the Universite de Montreal in 2009. She is currently Project Leader – Toxicology at Revlon and Adjunct Professor in the Dept of Pharmacology and Toxicology of the School of Pharmacy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Her cross-functional training and growing experience has enabled her to critically review and present on the use of alternative approaches to support safety evaluation in the consumer goods and pharmaceutical industries. She has authored papers on environmental and occupational toxicology and product safety and has promoted the use and value of alternative methods to fill data gaps and enable risk assessment. For instance, she has presented on the use of computational approaches to de-risk impurities (i.e., ICH M7) and as a means of classifying potentially active intermediates in pharmaceutical production. She is on the Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) Science and Support Committee, and is a member of sister organizations ACT and SOT. In this latter society, she was nominated to the WWW task force in 2009-2010; as member (2012) and Chair (since 2013) of the Regulatory and Safety Evaluation program review committee; as member of the Career Resource and Development committee (since 2015); and elected as Postdoctoral Assembly Treasurer (2010-2012) and Women in Toxicology (WIT) Councilor (2015-2017). In these roles, she has provided scientific review and expertise, leadership, and guidance to help the groups achieve their respective goals. She now looks forward to joining the ASCCT’s Board of Directors to help this growing society further its mission.

Statement of Purpose:
As a scientist in the industry who spends a lot of my daily activities conducting safety evaluation, I am well aware of the challenges facing risk assessors and I am a vocal advocate for the use of alternative methods to improve throughput, prioritize, and de-risk chemicals entities. For this very reason, I have maintained relationships with Academia and collaborations with Government to continue stimulating the development and acceptance of alternative approaches. As a member of the Board of Directors of ASCCT, I hope to help the society further establish itself, grow its reach, and most of all strengthen the collaborations amongst all stakeholders across different types of organizations to fulfill our organization’s mission. I wholeheartedly believe that cellular and computational approaches are not only the future of toxicology, but also critically needed to address the lag between market and data. In practice, I would also propose to use social media to expand public awareness and would continue to develop the webinar program. Advocating for regulatory changes such as those that occurred in Europe may also be a valuable path to pursue. I have a proven track record of helping organizations meet their goals and I look forward to contributing to our cause.

John “Jack” R. Fowle III, PhD, DABT

Dr. John R. “Jack” Fowle III is the principal of Science to Inform, LLC, where he advises clients about the use of science to inform decisions regarding environmental risk and in the development and use of alternatives to animal testing. Before 2012 he was the Deputy Director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Health Effects Division in the Office of Pesticide Programs and prior to that he served as Director of EPA’s Neurotoxicology Division and Assistant Laboratory Director at the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Lab. During his tenure at the EPA, a large focus of his work was the development and implementation of in vitro and computational toxicology approaches to assess the health risks of chemicals and pesticides. Dr. Fowle currently serves on a number of boards and committees, including the Institute of In Vitro Sciences, the American Society for Cellular and Computational Toxicology, the Society of Toxicology’s In Vitro and Alternative Methods Specialty section, and the Evidence Based Toxicology Consortium at Johns Hopkins University. He received both his baccalaureate and doctoral degrees in genetics from George Washington University in Washington, DC.

Statement of Purpose:
My passion is to apply the knowledge I’ve gained over a 36 year career to advance the use of Tox21 approaches to make the testing process more informative and efficient and to reduce the use and suffering of animals for toxicity testing. The ASCCT can play a critical role in this endeavor, and I believe that my experiences provide me with an in depth understanding of the role science plays to inform decisions to help ASCCT position itself to become a major resource to scientists, decision makers and the public.

I have to pinch myself because scientific advances that we take for granted today were considered science fiction early in my career. While science informs decisions, it is economics, values, legal precedents and policies that make decisions. However, science is an extremely important decision driver that can help effect major change over time.

I feel fortunate to have witnessed a spectacular revolution in science to better understand the blueprint, architecture and function of life. I feel lucky to have played a small role to apply this knowledge to help improve health and the environment, to reduce the use and suffering of animals for toxicity testing, and to make the testing process more informative and efficient. I am committed to continue to work to help make this so and to help the ASCCT achieve its goals.

Thomas Hartung, MD, PhD

Thomas Hartung, MD PhD, is Professor of Toxicology (Chair for Evidence-based Toxicology), Pharmacology, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, and University of Konstanz, Germany; he also is Director of their Centers for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT, http://caat.jhsph.edu) with the portal AltWeb (http://altweb.jhsph.edu/). CAAT hosts the secretariat of the Evidence-based Toxicology Collaboration (http://www.ebtox.com) and the industry refinement working group. As PI, he heads the Human Toxome project (http://humantoxome.com) funded as an NIH Transformative Research Grant. He is the former Head of the European Commission¹s Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM), Ispra, Italy. He has authored more than 440 scientific publications, which were cited about 13, 500 times (h-factor 58).

Statement of purpose:
The main goal of my work is toward a paradigm shift in toxicity testing to improve public health. I have pursued research in inflammation and infectious diseases at the University of Konstanz, Germany, until 2008, where I continue to be full professor. From 2002 to 2008, I was in parallel Head of the European Commission¹s Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM), Ispra, Italy, where I led a team of 65 people to develop and evaluate novel toxicity testing strategies. Since 2009, I am Chair for Evidence-based Toxicology with a joint appointment for Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore. My research interest is into novel tools and their quality assurance to improve safety sciences using the examples of developmental neurotoxicity and endocrine disruption. We focus on organotypic cell cultures (microphysiological systems) of the brain, the integration of metabolomics and transcriptomics and making sense by bioinformatics of the "big data" to deduce pathways of toxicity. As a founding board member of ASCCT I am trying to help establish an academic society fostering information exchange and collaboration in our field in the US.

Shaun D. McCullough, PhD

Dr. Shaun McCullough is an investigator in the Clinical Research Branch of the U.S. EPA's Environmental Public Health Division in Chapel Hill, NC. His research focuses on epigenetic modifications as markers of how cells and individuals respond to environmental exposures. Dr. McCullough’s lab is dedicated to using in vitro models to investigate the role of the epigenome as a mediator of inter-individual variability in toxicant-induced adverse health effects. Dr. McCullough also actively participates in collaborations that unite government, industry, and academia to promote the development and application of in vitro models as tools in mechanistic toxicology, computational modeling, and risk assessment. Dr. McCullough is the Chairman of the EPA’s National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory Epigenetics Workgroup, Chairman of the multi-institutional Visiting Pulmonary Scholars Executive Committee, a founding member of the UNC at Chapel Hill’s Program in Chromatin and Epigenetics, and the Task Leader for EPA initiatives to develop concordance between in vitro and human in vivo toxicity testing. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology with honors from Clemson University and a doctorate in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics from the University of Virginia School of Medicine where he developed an in vitro model of epigenetic contributions to neurotoxicity.

Statement of Purpose:
The field of toxicology is evolving to appreciate the utility and impact of in vitro, cellular, and computational approaches in defining mechanisms of toxicity, identifying biomarkers of exposure and susceptibility, and reducing the demand for animal testing. I believe that the future of toxicology will depend on the development and use of cellular and computational approaches to understand how toxicants exert adverse effects on target cells and tissues at the molecular level. This understanding will be essential to the development of models that can accurately predict toxicant-mediated adverse effects, susceptibility, and modifiable factors that can be leveraged to mitigate exposure-associated risk. As a society supporting such developments, ASCCT is poised to lead the field of toxicology and shape the next generation of toxicologists. If elected to the Board of Directors, I will help ASCCT foster a collaborative research environment between government, industry, and academia to develop tools to further in vitro toxicology and opportunities for toxicologists of all disciplines to exchange ideas and information. Further, I will work to develop transformative ways to advance cellular and computational toxicology. As an experienced leader and molecular toxicologist with a vision to further the acceptance and application of in vitro toxicology I will help ASCCT realize its goal of reducing the use of animals in toxicology testing through the advancement of alternative in vitro and computational methods.

Other (please specify)