David Eaton, professor emeritus in the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS), received the 2024 Merit Award from the Society of Toxicology (SOT).
Considered the most prestigious award that SOT offers, the Merit Award honors extraordinary career-long contributions to the discipline of toxicology and to the society itself.
During his past 40 years as a faculty member and administrator at the UW, Eaton has contributed groundbreaking research on how chemical exposures in our diet and environment can lead to the development of cancer via particular molecular mechanisms.
Eaton’s leadership at the UW has included directing the Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health from 1995 to 2015, serving as associate vice provost for research from 2006 to 2013 and as dean and vice provost for the UW Graduate School from 2013 to 2018.
Eaton said he was “very humbled” to receive the award, noting that past award recipients include many of the field’s “giants,” including two of his doctoral mentors, Dr. John Doull and Curtis Klaassen, as well as his early-career mentor at the UW, Sheldon Murphy, who helped develop the DEOHS toxicology program in the 1980s.
“It is an incredible honor to be recognized along with these and many other remarkable leaders in our field,” he said. “I would like to make sure that all of my UW DEOHS colleagues, graduate students, postdocs and research staff know that receipt of this award is due in large part to them, for their extraordinary support and collaboration throughout my 40 years in the DEOHS.”
Invaluable insights
Rick Woychik, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, was one of the researchers who nominated Eaton for the award.
“Dr. Eaton’s contributions to the field of toxicology are remarkably significant,” Woychik wrote in his nomination: he has published 130 peer-reviewed research articles, 75 review articles and book chapters and edited 5 books.
Woychik highlighted Eaton’s work on aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), a fungal toxin that can contaminate food, and one of its metabolites, which can give rise to DNA mutations that can predispose people to cancer.
That work “has provided invaluable insights, and had a profound impact on our understanding of human health risks associated with AFB1 exposure,” Woychik said.
Highlighting Eaton’s leadership in research, education and regulatory activities and his service to the SOT, Woychik wrote that he “embodies the qualities of a consummate scientist — intelligent, diligent, and highly productive, yet approachable and ever willing to extend a helping hand. The entire toxicology community has been enriched by his contributions.”
