Dan Roden, MD, Senior Vice President for Personalized Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, received the Oscar B. Hunter Career Award in Therapeutics last week at the virtual annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT).
Named for the famed George Washington University pathologist and established in 1955, the Oscar B. Hunter Career Award “recognizes a meritorious career in drug research, excellence or contributions in direct patient care, and a distinguished teaching career,” according to the ASCPT. It is the Society’s premier award.
“Jonas Salk received the first Hunter award, and the list of recipients includes leaders in translational medicine,” said Roden, who holds the endowed Sam L. Clark, MD, PhD Chair in the School of Medicine. “I am deeply honored to be included among such amazing company.”
Roden, who is also interim director of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and professor of Medicine, Biomedical Informatics and Pharmacology, is internationally known for his studies of the mechanisms and treatment of abnormal heart rhythms and variability in drug response. One of his major research interests is pharmacogenomics — especially the role genetic variations play in adverse drug reactions such as drug-induced arrhythmias.
Roden has led Vanderbilt’s broad efforts in pharmacogenomics discovery and implementation, including the development of BioVU, Vanderbilt’s DNA biobank and de-identified electronic health records, and Vanderbilt’s participation in the National Human Genome Research Institute’s Electronic Medical Records and Genetics (eMERGE) Network. He is a leader of VUMC’s PREDICT (Pharmacogenomic Resource for Enhanced Decisions in Care and Treatment), which since 2010 has applied genomic testing to drug prescribing in an effort to avoid adverse drug reactions.
Roden received his medical degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. After completing residency training in internal medicine in Montreal, he arrived at Vanderbilt in 1978 as a research fellow in clinical pharmacology and later as a fellow in cardiology. He joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 1981 and directed the Division of Clinical Pharmacology from 1992 to 2004 when he became the founding director of the Oates Institute for Experimental Therapeutics.
Roden is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians, and an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The Oscar B. Hunter Career Award is his third award from ASCPT; he received the Leon I. Goldberg Early Investigator Award in 1992 and the Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award in 2008.