Gideon Koren, MD Selected as the 2012 Yaffe Award Recipient 

Gideon Koren, MD, FRCPC, FACMT, has been selected as the 2012 recipient of the Sumner Yaffe Lifetime Achievement Award in Pediatric Pharmacology and Therapeutics. Dr Koren is a pediatrician and toxicologist–clinical pharmacologist. He is Professor of Pediatrics, Pharmacology, Pharmacy, and Medical Genetics, and a Senior Scientist at The University of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children, and is Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics and Physiology-Pharmacology at the University of Western Ontario. He is the founder and director of the Motherisk Program in Toronto. He graduated from the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University in 1974 and completed a pediatric residency in 1980 at Tel Aviv University, followed by 2 years of subspecialty training in pediatric nephrology, focusing on the renal damage caused by medications.

Between 1982 and 1986 he completed his training in clinical pharmacology-toxicology at the University of Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children. In 1985 he received a diploma in clinical toxicology from the American Board of Medical Toxicology.

In 1985 Dr Koren founded, and has directed ever since, the Motherisk Program, a national counseling and research center for women and health professionals on the safety/risk of drugs, chemicals, radiation, infections during pregnancy, and lactation.

His research programs are supported by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the National Institutes of Health, the March of Dimes, Physician Services Inc, Health Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Health, and the pharmaceutical industry.

Dr Koren has published more than 1300 peer-reviewed scientific papers and 13 medical-scientific books, mostly in the field of human toxicology. He is the editor in chief of the international journal Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology, and of the new peer-review journal Fetal Alcohol Research. He holds the Ivey Chair in Molecular Toxicology at the University of Western Ontario. Dr Koren has won numerous scientific awards in Canada and internationally, including the Rawls-Palmer award from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (1977), and the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Canadian Society for Clinical Pharmacology. He has supervised in his laboratory trainees from more than 40 countries worldwide. Dr Koren discovered and described the use of hair analysis to detect long-term exposure to drugs of abuse (e.g., cocaine, heroin, crystal meth) both in adults and neonates, opening up tremendous opportunities to explain poisoning, toxicity, and effects on health and behavior. His group has documented for the first time that infants possess long-term memory for pain inflicted by circumcision at infancy.

Dr. Koren will present, "Drugs in Pregnancy; Treating the Mother- Protecting the Unborn" during the 11th Annual Yaffe Award Presentation and Lecture will be held in Houston, Texas on April 20, 2012 during the 21st PPAG Annual Meeting and Pediatric Pharmacy Conference.