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(Alexandria, VA) – Marcus M. Reidenberg, MD, Professor, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, has been selected by the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT) to receive the 2008 Oscar B. Hunter Memorial Award in Therapeutics at its 2008 Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.

The Oscar B. Hunter Memorial Award in Therapeutics honors individual scientists for outstanding lifetime contributions to clinical pharmacology and therapeutics. This award recognizes a meritorious career in drug research, excellence in or contributions to direct patient care, and a distinguished teaching career. The Oscar B. Hunter Memorial Award is named for Washington, D.C. physician, Dr. Oscar Benwood Hunter Sr., whose father and grandfather were also physicians. Dr. Hunter was an active ASCPT member who held the offices of Secretary and President.

ASCPT will present this prestigious award to Dr. Reidenberg at its Annual Meeting on Saturday, April 5, 2008. At that time, Dr. Reidenberg will present a lecture entitled "From Adverse Drug Reactions to Drug Disposition to WHO and Essential Medicines to Our Discipline of Clinical Pharmacology."

Dr. Reidenberg received his undergraduate education at Cornell University. After earning his MD and completing a fellowship program at Temple University, he served as Senior Medical Officer at the U.S. Naval Station in Trinidad. He then returned to Temple University, where he completed his residency. Training with Professor R.T. Williams, Dr. Reidenberg spent a year at St. Mary's Hospital in London studying drug metabolism, and then continued his research on clinical pharmacology with Professor Folke Sjöqvist at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. When he returned to the United States, Dr. Reidenberg resumed his career at Temple University before accepting his current position as Professor of Pharmacology, Medicine, and Public Health at Weill Medical College, Cornell University. He served as an attending physician and visiting physician at New York Hospital and Rockefeller University, respectively, before closing his personal practice of medicine in 2006.

Dr. Reidenberg has led a distinguished teaching career. The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics awarded him the Harry Gold Award for Research and Teaching Excellence in Clinical Pharmacology in 1999. In 2000, the Weill Medical College of Cornell University honored him with the Award for Teaching Excellence. In 1993, the Departmental Associates of the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center established the Marcus M. Reidenberg Gateways to Science Program in honor of Dr. Reidenberg to provide minority college students with summer research opportunities.

Dr. Reidenberg has published more than 130 original research articles in peer-reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association. He served as Editor of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, the official journal of the ASCPT, from 1985 through 2001. He has been a member of the World Health Organization's Expert Panel on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines since 1989, served on its Expert Committee, and was elected Chair of the Expert Committee in 2007.

Dr. Reidenberg has contributed to ASCPT in a number of leadership roles throughout his 40 years of membership, most notably as President of the Society in 1984. He was also the recipient of the ASCPT Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award in 1981 and the Henry W. Elliott Distinguished Service Award in 1999.

ASCPT is the leading forum for the exchange, development, and integration of translational science into the drug development continuum from discovery to safe and effective medication use. Headquartered in Alexandria, VA, ASCPT was founded in 1900 and has more than 2,100 members worldwide.