Environmental Factor, November 2007, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
NIEHS Chemist Honored for Free Radical Research
By Eddy Ball
November 2007
NIEHS chemist Ronald Mason, Ph.D., has received the 2007 Senior Investigator Lifetime Achievement Award 
from the Society for Free Radical Biology and Medicine (SFRBM). As part of this honor, Mason will present a featured lecture at the 14th Annual SFRBM Meeting at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, D.C. on November 14. In addition, Mason will receive a $2,500 cash award and an invitation to publish a review article in the Society’s journal, Free Radical Biology and Medicine.
The award is an acknowledgement of Mason’s major contributions to the detection and study of free radicals derived from or dependent on the metabolism of toxic chemicals, drugs and biomolecules. In the course of his 29 years with NIEHS, Mason has built upon his original training as a physical chemist in electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy, which is the only general, but yet selective, method for the detection of free radicals.
Mason has made several ground-breaking discoveries related to the role of nitroreductase in drug toxicity and the free radical post-translational modification of proteins. His group has been very successful and productive using experimental rodent models in in vivo detection of the free radical mechanisms of diseases, such as endotoxin-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome, alcohol-induced liver damage and diabetes mellitus.
Currently a senior investigator and head of the NIEHS Free Radical Metabolite Section in the Laboratory of Pharmacology and Chemistry, Mason invented a novel immuno-spin free radical assay in 2002 that, according to SFRBM, “democratizes rigorous free radical detection.” The new methodology offers researchers a cost-effective, validated assay that eliminates the need for highly expensive ESR equipment and the quantum mechanical expertise needed to operate it. The new technique produces orders-of-magnitude higher sensitivity and requires one-thousandth of the sample size needed for ESR — while also giving researchers the ability to analyze multiple samples simultaneously.
The author of more than 450 studies, Mason’s previous honors include the prestigious International ESR Society Silver Medal and the Southern Chemist Award and Gold Medal given by the Southeast Region of the American Chemical Society. He is an accomplished instructor and mentor for junior scientists in training at NIEHS. In 2006, he received the Institute’s Scientist of the Year Award.
At the SFRBM awards event, Mason will be joined by Robert A. Floyd, Ph.D., head of the Free Radical Biology and Aging Research Program at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, who will be honored with the Society’s Discovery Award.
