Dr. John Wise is the Principal Investigator of the Wise Laboratory of Environmental and Genetic Toxicology. He is a Professor of Toxicology and Molecular Epidemiology in the Department of Applied Medical Sciences, and Director of the Maine Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health at the University of Southern Maine.
Dr. Wise is also a graduate of Portland High School in Portland, Maine just down the street from the laboratory. He received the Brown medal and Frank Preti award for excellence in academics and athletics and was inducted into the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Chapter of the National Honor Society.
Dr. Wise holds appointments at the Edgerton Research Laboratory in the New England Aquarium, Ocean Alliance, Mystic Aquarium and Sea Research Foundation, the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, the University of New England, and the graduate school of the University of Maine. He serves on the Maine Governor's Task Force for Safer Chemicals in Consumer Products, the State of Maine Environmental Risk Advisory Committee, the Maine State Science and Technology Advisory Board, and on the Maine State Surface Water Ambient Toxics monitoring program.
Dr. Wise's research interests are in the areas of cancer mechanism, metal toxicology, marine toxicology, and cell culture. Prior to coming to USM, Dr. Wise trained in pharmacology at the George Washington University, focusing on metal toxicology in cell culture models. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis at the National Cancer Institute under the direction of Dr. Peter Shields and Dr. Curtis Harris. During this time he continued his work in cell culture and expanded his training into molecular epidemiology. Following this postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Wise worked as the Senior Toxicologist at Jonathan Borak and Company, an environmental and occupational medicine consulting firm. During this time he wrote state-of-the-art toxicological reviews, prepared risk assessments and helped design health programs for workers exposed to chemicals. This led to a tenure-track position in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale University, where Dr. Wise taught several courses and obtained numerous research grants. All combined, this training has provided Dr. Wise with theoretical, laboratory and practical training to investigate some of our most important environmental issues.
Dr. Wise is an active member of several professional societies including:
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- American Association for Cancer Research
- American College of Toxicology
- American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
- American Thoracic Society
- Environmental Mutagen Society
- Genetic Toxicology Association
- International Association for Aquatic Animal Medicine
- Marine Mammalogy Society
- Northeast Chapter, Society of Toxicology
- North Atlantic Chapter, Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
- Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
- Society of In Vitro Biology
- Society of Toxicology
