Please join Wayne State University's Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors (CURES) for their upcoming virtual seminar on February 29, 2024 at 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. ET. The seminar is free; registration is required. The Zoom link will be emailed to all registrants prior to Feb. 29.

The guest speaker will be Dr. Lauren Aleksunes, professor, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Rutgers University. Dr. Aleksunes will present, "Toxins in our food supply: Can the placenta barrier protect offspring?"

Dr. Aleksunes will discuss how exposure to estrogenic fungal-derived toxins (called ‘mycoestrogens’) during pregnancy alters the health of the placenta and fetus, and will focus on a particularly sensitive population based on the genetic variation in the placental transporter BCRP/ABCG2.

Biosketch:

Dr. Aleksunes is a board-certified toxicologist with expertise in both basic and clinical toxicology. She was the first recipient of dual Pharm.D. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Connecticut. Her postdoctoral training in mechanistic toxicology was performed at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Since arriving at Rutgers University in 2009, Dr. Aleksunes has been highly productive in the fields of transporter biology and toxicology with over 140 publications (h-index: 47). In 2010, she published a review article on xenobiotic transporters in Pharmacological Reviews that has been cited over 500 times. Her research is currently funded by multiple R01 grants from NIH/NIEHS, NIH/NCI, and NIH/NIGMS. For her research accomplishments, Dr. Aleksunes received the Outstanding Young Investigator Award from the Society of Toxicology Women in Toxicology and the Richard Okita Early Career Award in Drug Metabolism and Disposition from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

Dr. Aleksunes is director of the T32-funded Joint Graduate Program in Toxicology which has been continuously funded for 37 years. In 2019, Rutgers was awarded a CTSA Award for NJ Alliance for Clinical and Translational Sciences (NJACTS). Within NJACTS, Dr. Aleksunes oversees the Workforce Development Core across the CTSA alliance. She is also director of the R25-funded Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) along with Dr. Debra Laskin. In recognition of her commitment to teaching and mentorship, Dr. Aleksunes has received the Excellence in Teaching Award from the New Jersey Health Foundation, the Mentor of the Year Award from the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education and the inaugural Rutgers Chancellor Educator of the Year Award in 2020. In 2021, she was selected as Teacher of the Year within the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy. Nationally, Dr. Aleksunes received the 2022 Pharmacology Educators Award from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.