Amanda Bryant-Friedrich, Ph.D., dean of the Wayne State University Graduate School and professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, was recently awarded the prestigious Founders Award by the American Chemical Society’s Division of Chemical Toxicology.

The award recognizes scientists whose work exemplifies excellence and innovative research in the field of chemical toxicology. 

The American Chemical Society is the largest professional organization for chemists. ACS acknowledging Bryant-Friedrich in such a way underscores Wayne State University as a competitive institution where steady research is being done in toxicology and medicinal chemistry. 

At the ACS annual meeting earlier this fall, Bryant-Friedrich was recognized as the 2024 Founders award recipient and delivered the Richard Loeppky Lecture, named for one of the division’s founders. She spoke about her research of the exposome, the framework that studies the totality of environmental exposures that contribute to toxicity in the human body, from social capital and climate to lifestyle choices and genetics. 

“I am incredibly honored and very blessed because my mentors who actually trained me as a science professional were the ones who chose me for the award,” she said later. “Many of them were in the audience, and so that was humbling in and of itself, but of course also very uplifting because they’ve supported me for so long.”

A number of those mentors who influenced her career spoke in the lead up to the lecture, including Peter Dedon, M.D., Ph.D., a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

“Amanda’s accomplishments clearly support the conclusion that there is far more to the best science than benchwork,” he said. “She is truly a science enabler.”