Research Triangle Park, NC -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/02/2011 -- The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences (The Hamner) (http://www.thehamner.org) has announced changes in leadership of its Institute for Chemical Safety Sciences (ICSS). Effective Sept. 1, 2011, Dr. Russell Thomas will assume the position of director of the ICSS, after previously serving as associate director. He will also retain his leadership of the Center for Genomic Biology and Bioinformatics. Dr. Melvin Andersen, who has presided as ICSS director for the past two years, has been named the inaugural Charles E. Hamner, Jr. Distinguished Fellow, and will continue to serve as associate director for the ICSS. These changes will position the ICSS to spur the future growth of a new generation of leadership, and allow Dr. Andersen to focus on implementing The Hamner’s program to accelerate development of key recommendations of the 2007 NRC report, “Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century (TT21C): A Vision and A Strategy.”

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“This transition of leadership will ensure that The Hamner’s chemical safety sciences platform will remain at the forefront of the field for years to come,” said Dr. William Greenlee, president and CEO of The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences. “Dr. Andersen has served the ICSS well, and I fully support him in his new role to help bring about a new paradigm in toxicity testing. The ICSS is in very capable hands with Dr. Thomas, and I look forward to the new opportunities that await The Hamner as he and Dr. Andersen lay out their strategic vision going forward.”

“I am very grateful for the opportunity to serve as the inaugural Charles E. Hamner, Jr. Distinguished Fellow,” said Andersen. “The Hamner has now obtained funding from a diverse group of contributors that will allow us to begin work on pilot projects with toxicity pathways in order to show how testing of these pathways with in vitro assays could guide a new generation of toxicity testing and risk assessment. Our first examples will be DNA-damage stress response and estrogen receptor pathway function. In my new role, I will lead a diverse group of talented colleagues in developing these key research programs and will try to expand the program to other pathways and adding other technologies needed to make ‘TT21C’ a reality. I very much look forward to this challenge and the opportunities to make important changes in toxicity testing at this stage of my career.”

“Replacing Dr. Andersen has left some big shoes to fill,” said Thomas. “He has provided outstanding leadership for The Hamner and the ICSS. I look forward to working with him to keep the ICSS at the cutting edge of chemical safety research and in training the next generation of safety sciences investigators.”

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About Dr. Thomas
Dr. Thomas completed his M.S. in radiation ecology and Ph.D. in toxicology at Colorado State University. Following his doctoral studies, he performed postdoctoral research in molecular biology and genomics at the McArdle Cancer Research Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Thomas has worked at The Hamner for the past eight years, where his research interests have focused on the development and application of genomic technologies and bioinformatic tools to toxicology and chemical risk assessment. His academic and professional honors include the Society of Toxicology Achievement Award (2009), Honorable Mention for Society of Toxicology Board of Publications Best Paper Award (2009), and Best Papers Advancing the Science of Risk Assessment by the Risk Assessment Specialty Section (2007 and 2008).

About DR. Melvin Andersen
During his 40-year career in toxicology and risk assessment, Dr. Andersen has developed biologically realistic models pertaining to the uptake, distribution, metabolism, and biological effects of toxic chemicals and drugs, and applied these models to safety evaluations and quantitative health risk assessments. His research has pioneered new uses of pharmacokinetic and mechanistic data in risk assessment programs. In 2002, Dr. Andersen was recognized as a “highly cited” scientist by the Institute for Scientific Information. He has served on numerous committees and advisory boards, including the Committee on Toxicity Testing and Assessment of Environmental Agents at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that produced the report: Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and A Strategy. Dr. Andersen received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Cornell in 1971. He is the author of 400 published papers and book chapters and has co-edited two books on quantitative modeling, Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetics: Science and Applications in 2005 and Quantitative Modeling in Toxicology in 2010.

About The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences
The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences is a nonprofit research organization located in the heart of Research Triangle Park (RTP), N.C. The two flagship institutes at The Hamner, the Institute for Chemical Safety Sciences and the Hamner-UNC Institute for Drug Safety Sciences, build upon 35 years of preeminent research in toxicology and human health research to develop and validate new cutting-edge tools for safety assessment. Novel technologies currently being developed include in silico models for predictive toxicology, in vitro models that utilize human cells or cell lines to evaluate perturbations of cellular responses, and in vivo models to elucidate genes that play a role in susceptibility to drug-induced toxicities. The Hamner continues to grow its open, multidisciplinary campus through global partnerships with academia, industry, and government, and remains dedicated to positively impacting human health. For more information, please visit http://www.thehamner.org.

Erin Smith
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