Paul Watkins, M.D., is the recipient of the 2018 American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics Division for Toxicology Career Award. Watkins is the Howard Q. Ferguson Distinguished Professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics and director of the Institute for Drug Safety Sciences at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill,
This award recognizes outstanding original research contributions to toxicology by an established investigator. Watkins was nominated by Alison Harrill, Ph.D., from the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, who said that his “ability to see value in developing a variety of experimental models is truly visionary and is reflective of Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century approaches.”
Watkins received his M.D. at Cornell Medical College in 1979. After academic appointments at the Medical College of Virginia and the University of Michigan, he joined the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1999, where he has held many professorships and leadership positions.
Watkins has been a leading researcher in understanding the mechanisms underlying interactions between drugs and the liver and intestine. He is one of the most highly cited researchers in the field due to his discovery of mechanisms underlying many drug interactions and toxicities including inhibition of metabolism and transport and the effects associated with consumption of furanocoumarins within grapefruit juice. More recently, Watkins has continued to move the field of hepatotoxicity forward with the deployment of translational technologies that span preclinical models, quantitative systems toxicology and patients in clinical trials. His work continues to provide important information regarding detection and mechanistic understanding of drug-induced liver injury of a variety of etiologies.
An ASPET member for 12 years, he has served as on the editorial board of Drug Metabolism and Disposition.
The Division for Toxicology Career award will be presented during the ASPET Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology 2018 in San Diego, California, at the Division for Toxicology annual meeting on Tuesday, April 24, at 6 p.m.