After many years of serving as a researcher, a teacher and a mentor, Dr. Fred Kauffman retired from the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Rutgers University.  As a professor in the JGPT, he affected the lives of numerous students; even now he is continuing to lecture in various courses for the JGPT, serve on dissertation committees, and offer advice to students writing their theses.  Dr. Kauffman conducted research on the understanding of the regulation of drug and hormone metabolism and the biochemical mechanisms of cell injury and death in tissues exposed to toxic chemicals. His most recent research inerests have focused on studying the function of estrogen in modulating neurotoxic events in the central nervous system, and on pioneering the use of the August-Copenhagen Irish rat as a valuable animal model to elucidate mechanisms underlying the initiation and progression of hormone-dependent breast cancer. He and his colleagues described enzymatic pathways of  sulfonation and desulfation of neurosteroids, which are found in the brain and are known to modulate important neuronal activity and behavior.  A specific isoform of sulfotransferase, SULT1A1, which is a major enzyme in rat brain responsible for sulfonation of neurosteroids, thyroid hormone and dopamine, was isolated and cloned in his laboratory.  He also investigated the hypothesis that chemoprotective actions of dietary flavones in breast cancer are due, in part, to the action of these compounds on the formation or hydrolysis of estrogen sulfates by specific sulfotransferases or sulfatases. In humans, estrone sulfate serves as the major reservoir of circulating estrogen, consequently dietary chemicals that disrupt either the formation of this compound in the liver or its hydrolysis in target tissues would alter its availability at sensitive sites in mammary tissue. His work has appeared in 241 primary research articles , and he is the author or co-author of three books dealing with the regulation of drug and toxic chemical metabolism in intact cells and organs.

	Dietary clofibrate inhibits induction of hepatic antioxidant enzymes by chronic estradiol in female ACI rats. Mesia-Vela S, Sanchez RI, Reuhl KR, Conney AH, Kauffman FC. Toxicology. 2004 Aug 5;200(2-3):103-11.
	Esterification of vertebrate-like steroids in the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica). Janer G, Mesia-Vela S, Wintermyer ML, Cooper KR, Kauffman FC, Porte C. Mar Environ Res. 2004 Aug-Dec;58(2-5):481-4
	Inhibition of rat liver sulfotransferases SULT1A1 and SULT2A1 and glucuronosyltransferase by dietary flavonoids. Mesia-Vela S, Kauffman FC. Xenobiotica. 2003 Dec;33(12):1211-20.
	Induction of NAD(P)H quinone oxidoreductase and glutathione S-transferase activities in livers of female August-Copenhagen Irish rats treated chronically with estradiol: comparison with the Sprague-Dawley rat. Sanchez RI, Mesia-Vela S, Kauffman FC. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2003 Nov;87(2-3):199-206.