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2008 International Dose-Response Society Awards

The International Dose-Response Society is proud to announce the recipients of the annual awards for Outstanding Leadership, Outstanding Career Achievement and Outstanding New Investigator. These awards are presented to individuals in each category who have made outstanding contributions to the field of Dose Response. The awards committee selecting the recipients was Helmut Hirsch, University at Albany, Ken Mundt, Environ, and Barbara Callahan, University Research.

This year’s awards go to Bobby Scott for Outstanding Leadership, Lu Cai for Outstanding Career Achievement and Sergio Parra for Outstanding New Investigator. Congratulations to all.

Bobby Scott
Outstanding Leadership Award

Dr. Bobby Scott received a B.S. in physics from the Southern University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a M.S. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana, Illinois, and a Ph.D. in biophysics also from the University of Illinois. His research career mainly has focused on developing predictive models for characterizing the risk for deterministic and stochastic radiobiological effects. Dr. Scott’s interest in radiation research originated during high school in connection with conducting an experiment on radiation mutagenic effects in fruit flies at Webster High, Minden, Louisiana. This interest continued through undergraduate and graduate school, leading to a theoretical Ph.D. thesis entitled “A Mechanistic State Vector Model for the Interaction of Ionizing Radiation with Cells” that was achieved under his advisor Professor Howard S. Ducoff. Professor Ducoff was one of the first to conduct experimental studies of radiation hormesis, and as a student Dr. Scott contributed to this work. Dr. Scott conducted his postdoctoral research related to modeling of radiation-induced life shortening at the Biology Division of Argonne National Laboratory. After completing his postdoctoral work he joined Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute (LRRI, then the Inhalation Toxicology Research Institute), where he is now a Senior Scientist. At LRRI, he developed a theoretical hazard-function model for quantifying radiation lethality and morbidity risks after large radiation doses. This model currently is used internationally for radiological incident risk assessment and was recently discussed in a paper in the journal Dose-Response. The paper addressed the nonlinear health risk from ingesting polonium-210, which related to the Litvinenko incident in London. Presently, his research focuses mainly on developing biological-based models that explain radiation hormesis at the molecular, cellular, and organ and/or tissue levels. Dr. Scott has been an active participant in the International Dose-Response Society for several years, both with respect to organizing and moderating conference sessions as well as keeping colleagues around the world informed about new developments in the field. Among his more than 100 scientific publications, over 20 relate to radiation and chemical hormesis.

Lu Cai
Outstanding Career Achievement

Lu Cai received his MD in 1983, and Ph.D. in 1990 from Jilin University in China, followed by a postdoctoral training at University of Western Ontario in 1993, and McGill University in 1995, Canada. He is currently an Associate Professor, Departments of Medicine and Radiation Oncology, the University of Louisville, and also Visiting Professor and Director, Chinese-American Institute for Diabetic Complications, Wenzhou Medical College, China.

Since 1990, Lu has concentrated his interests in the biological effect of low-dose radiation (LDR) under the supervision of Dr. Shuzheng Liu, a well-known Chinese Radio-Biologist. The unique feature of Lu’s interests in LDR effect is its impact on public health and medical application. Lu is one of the first persons to investigate whether LDR adaptive response occurs in male germ cells in vivo (Int J Radiat Biol 1990), which was followed by several other important papers in the same field (Mutation Res 1993,1994; Mutagenesis 1995; Radiation Res 2006; Critical Review in Toxicology 2007). Later, he further extended LDR-induced hormesis and adaptive responses into hematology, showing the induction of hormetic and adaptive response in the hemapoietic system, with several important publications in Radiation Res (1995) and Toxicological Sciences (2000). The studies demonstrated for the first time that LDR can partially replace stem cell stimulating factor, G-CSF, to stimulate and mobilize hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs) into peripheral blood, and they further proved that the mobilized HPCs are able to rescue lethally irradiated recipient mice (Exp Hematology 2004). More recently, the studies further demonstrated the significant difference of normal human tissues from human tumor cells in response to LDR in vitro and in vivo (Radiation Res 2008, in press; J Radiation Res 2008, in press). Meanwhile, Dr. Cai is also pursuing to apply LDR’s hormestic and adaptive mechanisms into prevention or intervention of diabetes and diabetic complications. His work on diabetic complications has made a great contribution to the field of diabetes research, publishing several important papers in JBC (2000), Diabetes (2002, 2005), Am J Pathol (2004,2005), J Am Coll Cardiol (2006, 2008), Free Rad Biol Med (2006) and Circulation (2006).

Sergio Parra
Outstanding New Investigator

I was born on January 5, 1974 in Medellín, Colombia. At age seventeen I went to the Universidad de Antioquia pursuing a career in medicine, ultimately becoming a physician. Throughout my college years I had the honor to rank in the 5th position among last year’s Colombian students of medicine, and rank in the 2nd position among 78 students of medicine. Soon after finishing my studies in medicine, I started my training as a pharmacologist. During this time, I was involved in a project evaluating the relationship between a polymorphism in the b1 adrenergic receptors and the clinical response to a selective antagonist for them. By the end of 2004 I went to Houston, Texas, to work in the Laboratory of Dr. Richard Bond, at the University of Houston, as a postdoctoral fellow. By the end of that same year Dr. Bond gave me the opportunity to visit Professor Clive Page’s Laboratory in London, United Kingdom, through the Texas / United Kingdom Collaborative Research Initiative award. That same year I was given a grant to attend to the British Pharmacological Society meeting in Newcastle. My work in Houston was about the taboo idea of using beta-blockers in asthma. There, using a mouse model of this disease and in a small clinical trial, we were able to demonstrate paradoxical and unthinkable effects of these drugs after its chronic administration in both animals and humans.

By the beginning of 2007, I got married and decided to come back to Colombia, where I got tenure as a Professor in the Universidad de Antioquia. In October 2007 the University sent me to Nagasaki, Japan, to take a course on research and development of products to meet public health needs. Now, I am involved in several projects, some of which are related with the development of drugs to treat neglected diseases in my country (i.e. Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, and malaria), and some others about pharmacogenetics.