Moore Award Recipient Dr. Barbara Kaplan: “I Did a Lot of My Growing Up Here”

The memories came flooding back for Dr. Barbara Kaplan when she returned to the Michigan State University Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology recently to receive the 2024 Kenneth E. Moore Distinguished Alumna Award.

Dr. Kaplan, who earned her Ph.D. at MSU in 2001 and spent nine years as a fixed-term faculty member in the lab of Dr. Norbert Kaminski, shared hugs with former colleagues and professors and recounted memories that she says will last a lifetime.

“This is so cool,” she said with a smile. “I did a lot of my growing up here.”

Established in 2000, the award honors Dr. Moore’s passion and devotion to training graduate students and is presented to PhmTox doctoral graduates. Dr. Kaplan is the 24th recipient.

Dr. Kaplan is now an Associate Professor at Mississippi State University in the Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences and the Center for Environmental Science in the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Her research focuses on understanding central nervous system autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis. The author of 72 peer-reviewed publications, she is known for her work on how immune signaling pathways influence disease development and progression, with an emphasis on understanding the underlying mechanisms at the cellular and molecular levels. Her NIH-funded studies focus on advancing knowledge of immune system behavior with a goal of developing new therapeutic strategies for conditions like MS.

When she learned she had won the award, Dr. Kaplan laughed and said, “I nearly fell off my chair. I was very excited not only to be honored but to be among the others who have already been honored. And I think I’m the first since Dr. Moore’s passing (in January 2024) to be honored and that’s very special. I hope I can do it justice.”

Indeed, receiving an award in his name had special significance for Dr. Kaplan.

“He was the type of person that he never made you feel like you couldn’t talk to him,” she said. “Here I was, a little graduate student, and he was the chair of the department, but he was so approachable and so easy to talk to. He always had a smile on his face.” He wasn’t the only one who always brought a smile.

“Barb came to PhmTox with a smile on her face that could light up a room,” said Dr. Susan Barman, award coordinator. “You could tell she loved research. Our department has been so fortunate to train some of the truly outstanding experts in pharmacology and toxicology, and Barb is a great example of this.”

“I am so incredibly proud of Barb’s many achievements and of her selection as this year’s awardee,” Dr. Norb Kaminski said. “It is extremely gratifying to see your students progress in their careers and especially when they are as successful as Barb has and continues to be.”

In her lecture to a packed room of MSU students and faculty, Dr. Kaplan discussed her research that revealed the mechanism of immune suppression by dioxin and suggests that non-toxic aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) ligands might be valuable for the treatment of autoimmune diseases.

As well, while back in East Lansing, Dr. Kaplan sat down with a group of graduate students to talk about science communication, a topic on which she is well versed. This year, she was awarded the Society of Toxicology Public Communications Award for her major contribution to broadening the general public’s awareness of toxicological issues.

Ironically, she came to the study of toxicology almost by accident.

A Detroit native, she spent much of her childhood in Sacramento, Calif., area and attended the University of California-Davis, where she initially enrolled without a clear idea of a major.

“I was trying to find myself,” she said. “I tried programming, and I was awful.”

Then, in a political science class, she studied the 1978 environmental disaster at Love Canal in New York, a notorious episode in which hundreds of people were sickened after carcinogenic chemicals buried years earlier by a defunct chemical company leeched into the water.

“I said, ‘How can this happen? This is crazy,’” she said. “I told my counselor this, and she said, ‘It sounds like you’d enjoy environmental toxicology.’ I got into that and loved it immediately.”

And she has remained in it since. She earned her bachelor’s degree in environmental toxicology and went to work as a chemist in the Sacramento area. “But it became very clear to me that anyone with a science degree with only a bachelor’s wasn’t going to be able to get very far, especially in that industry,” Dr. Kaplan said. “I was going to get my Ph.D. and then go back to the (chemical) industry. And that changed.”

She applied to six schools to seek her toxicology doctorate and decided on Michigan State.

“It was a perfect fit for me,” she said.

She did post-doctoral work at the University of Chicago and then returned to MSU to work with Dr. Kaminski, with whom she has developed a long friendship. She also met her future husband at MSU and in a similar field and venue. Evan Kaplan teaches Intro to Biology, Cell Biology, and Cancer Biology at Mississippi State.

“A lot of science talk at the dinner table,” she said.

For Dr. Kaplan, the return to MSU was like walking in a familiar neighborhood and she remembers just how important it was for her in so many ways. “I discovered who I was as a scientist and made lifelong friendships,” she said. “I was very lucky.”