Stuart Lipton, MD, PhD, the Step Family Endowed Chair, professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine and co-founding director of the Neurodegeneration New Medicines Center at Scripps Research, has received the Plenary Lecture Gold Medal Award from the Japanese Society of Toxicology (JSOT)—the society’s highest honor. Lipton accepted this prestigious award at JSOT’s 51st annual meeting, which took place in Fukuoka, Japan, from July 3 to July 5, 2024.

JSOT is a professional organization dedicated to the field of toxicology, which is the science of how chemicals and other substances may adversely affect organisms. It is among the largest toxicology societies in the world.

Lipton has made significant contributions to toxicology in the context of pharmaceutical research for neurodegenerative diseases. He was instrumental in the clinical development and patenting of the FDA-approved Alzheimer’s drug memantine—also known under the brand names Namenda, Namenda XR and Namzaric. Additionally, Lipton discovered a chemical reaction called protein S-nitrosylation. This reaction—which occurs when a molecule related to nitric oxide (NO) binds to a sulfur atom (S) on a cysteine amino-acid residue within a protein (forming a “SNO-protein”)—plays a critical role in neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s. In terms of toxicology and the current award, the Lipton group recently showed that environmental air pollutants can cause this aberrant reaction, contributing to Alzheimer’s by increasing synapse loss (the connections between nerve cells allowing you to form memories).

Lipton and colleagues also combined memantine with S-nitrosylation chemistry to create NitroSynapsin, an experimental drug to mitigate excessive electrical activity in the brain. This activity contributes to the loss of synaptic connections between nerve cells that are critical for cognitive functions such as memory.

Lipton’s lab at Scripps Research is now developing new drugs to combat various neurogenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s and vascular dementia, and is creating novel treatments for autism-spectrum disorder as well as a range of intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Throughout his career, Lipton has received several honors and awards, including the Alzheimer’s Disease Association Award, the Director’s Grant Award from the National Institutes of Health, the Discovery Award from the Society for Redox Biology and Medicine, the Ernst Jung Prize for Medicine, and the Lecture Award from the Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen.

Lipton is an elected member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology as well as the American Neurological Association. In addition to his work at Scripps Research, Lipton is a practicing clinical neurologist at University of California San Diego and an adjunct professor of neurology at Yale School of Medicine.