Toxicology major wins national award from Pfizer

Toxicology major Phillip Wages

Phillip Wages, a senior toxicology major at Ashland University, has just received one of only five national student travel awards from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer to present his research on the toxic effects of pesticides and herbicides at the 2011 meeting of the Society of Toxicology in Washington D.C.

The Pfizer Undergraduate Student Travel Award will provide funding for Phillip's travel, housing and registration at the meeting, and provides the opportunity to interact with Pfizer scientists at an award ceremony.  Phillip will also be paired with a Pfizer scientist as a mentor during the meeting.

Phillip has been involved in multiple undergraduate research projects while a toxicology major at Ashland University, including a National Science Foundation-funded summer research internship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and National Institutes of Health-funded research on zebrafish development at Ashland University.  At the SOT meeting Phillip will be presenting data from his honors thesis work using larval zebrafish to test the toxicity of common pesticides and herbicides.  Phillip designed this project to take advantage of the zebrafish as a new model system for toxicological studies.  After graduating this Spring Phillip plans to pursue a PhD in Toxicology.