With sadness, IQ DILI offers condolences on the passing of Dr. John Senior. The communication below from Gerald Dal Pan and Mark Avigan is shared with permission.
It is with deep regret that we share the recent passing of Dr. John Senior, an individual who made immense contributions to public health in his long FDA career.
After a distinguished career as a gastroenterologist and hepatologist, both in academia and industry, he joined FDA in 1995 as a medical reviewer for gastrointestinal drugs. Within a few years, building on the seminal work of the late Dr. Hyman Zimmerman, he began active consulting to other medical officers at the FDA to identify and manage risk associated with drug-induced liver injury (DILI), both in premarket & post-market settings. Together with Dr. Ted Guo, PhD in the Office of Biostatistics, John pioneered eDISH, a graphic tool that is now used widely by regulatory scientists and industry experts to integrate serum biochemical data with case narratives as a critical tool in the identification of idiosyncratic cases of DILI in clinical trials. Not resting on his laurels, John initiated and convened regular meetings on Drug-induced Liver Injury Meeting that have been held at FDA since 1999. After he retired in 2019, this conference, now co-sponsored with the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, is an ongoing legacy for his colleagues and that continues to thrive and attracts leading scholars, industry partners and consultants in the US and worldwide.
John is survived by his dear wife, Sara Elizabeth Spedden, with whom he was married for 69 years, three children, six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Of note, John was elected to the Council of the American Association for Study of Liver Diseases in 1969-79 and was its 25th President in 1974. He was a retired Rear Admiral, Medical Corps, United States Naval Reserve, after serving for 39 years.
John will be long remembered for his major contributions to our understanding of the evaluation and management of drug-induced liver disease, and his teaching of generations of medical officers about this condition.