Much of the work carried out by DTT is in support of the National Toxicology Program (NTP), an interagency partnership of the Food and Drug Administration, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and NIEHS.

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Mechanistic Toxicology Branch

Stephen S. Ferguson, Ph.D.

Chemist

Tel 984-287-3128
[email protected]

Metabolite formation with human drug substrates over a range of in vitro liver models showing free-floating 3D microtissue models are superior to conventional 2D systems. (Image courtesy of Predictive Toxicology & Screening Group)

Predicting potencies for human liver injury in response to drugs and environmental chemicals. The Power of Resolution: Contextualized Understanding of Biological Responses to Liver Injury Chemicals Using High-throughput Transcriptomics and Benchmark Concentration Modeling, Toxicological Sciences, Volume 169, Issue 2, June 2019, Pages 553–566. Full Text (Image courtesy of Predictive Toxicology & Screening Group)

Stephen Ferguson, Ph.D., leads the Predictive Toxicology & Screening Group within the Mechanistic Toxicology Branch of the Division of Translational Toxicology (DTT). His primary research focuses to understand and predict human hepatic and renal responses to drug, natural product, and environmental chemical/mixture exposures through development and qualification of a range of microphysiological systems (MPS) and diagnostic assay platforms. He leads a number of innovative toxicology investigations of environmental substances (PFAS, AFFF, PCBs, PAHs, herbicides) that apply new approach methods (NAMs) to inform regulatory decisions and enable safer product development. Emerging focus for this group seeks to develop advanced MPS that emulate toxicologic pathologies and interindividual susceptibility states to enable deeper understanding of the progressions of biological response that coalesce into recognizable pathologies and complement traditional toxicology research methods through interspecies comparisons.

Prior to joining the DTT, Ferguson led the ADME-Tox R&D program of Life Technologies (now Thermo-Fisher) to develop in vitro liver models for prediction of human drug metabolism, transport, drug-drug interactions and hepatotoxicity. He received his BS and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry and biotechnology from North Carolina State University, and currently serves as adjunct faculty to the Curriculum in Toxicology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.