Research Career Overview

As a Young Person, Who (or What) Inspired You to Pursue a Career in Science?

There were many inspirations leading me to a career in science in the 1950s. From the youngest age, I was interested in the natural world. I remember vividly when Albert Einstein died (in 1955) and there was a great deal of press on his life and contributions. The process of science and discovery seemed very exciting. Then, the space race began in the later 1950s and the promise of peaceful use of nuclear energy was still bright. In guidance class, about eighth-grade level, my professed career plan was “nuclear physicist.”

One particular early-life experience during my junior high school years was an afternoon course in astronomy and identifying constellations offered at the public museum in Roger Williams Park—about a mile from my home. The particularly memorable part of my time at the museum, though, was looking at photographic glass plates showing nebula within the Milky Way and galaxies outside the Milky Way. With the stunning growth of imaging at every accessible wavelength over these past 50 years, it is difficult to convey the sheer wonder of my first, fuzzy glimpse of just how big a universe we live in and how it was possible to make these discoveries. To this day, I consider myself an amateur observational cosmologist, reading books on the history of science, and keeping up-to-date on discoveries about stars and galaxies—all likely a product of staring at those plates in the 1950s.

Please Tell Us About Your Early Scientific Training

I attended a highly regarded public school in Cranston, Rhode Island. The faculty provided the usual science curriculum through high school—biology in 9th and 10th grade, chemistry as a junior, and classical physics in 12th grade. I really loved chemistry—balancing chemical reactions, learning how elements mixed in fixed proportions to become new chemicals, and the fun of doing and seeing results of class laboratory experiments—crushing a tin can by letting steam condense after closing the can or making a small explosion by throwing fine pollen grains into a flame from a Bunsen burner. Kapow! Really great stuff.

The next step was college. My home sat on the edge of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford rail lines that separated Cranston and Providence. College choices for me were primarily in Rhode Island either at the University of Rhode Island as a live-in student or commuting to Brown University in Providence. My family, especially my mother, encouraged me to apply to both schools and see what opportunities came my way. I was accepted at Brown to a bachelor of science degree program in Chemistry. In 1963, this particular degree program was more akin to a technical trade school with 20 of 32 classes over 4 years devoted to chemistry, physics, math, and engineering rather than liberal arts courses. Most importantly, I was no longer anywhere near top of my class. It was hard work but rewarding. And, Brown in 1963 provided an astonishing opportunity for undergraduate training—a low student to faculty ratio, a focus more on undergraduate than graduate student education, and a progressive, highly quantitative chemistry program.

My mentor at Brown was the late Dr John O. Edwards, a chemist whose research area was inorganic chemistry reaction mechanisms. ¹ Before graduating Brown, I had taken 5 courses from Dr Edwards—freshman physical chemistry, 2 semesters of inorganic chemistry, and 2 semesters of senior research. ² After leaving Brown and my home in Rhode Island, I would stop by and visit with Dr Edwards every few years on family visits to Rhode Island. He was a wonderful mentor. During my time at Brown, my developing interests were primarily in organic chemistry and perhaps biochemistry. Dr Edwards knew of these interests. However, by my senior year, I was smitten with my inorganic chemistry research project and spoke with him about pursuing doctoral training in some area of inorganic chemistry. He listened and then said that inorganic chemistry might be a possible direction for me but reminded me that I had for so long expressed an interest in biochemistry. All he said was to think long about my real interests and not be overly swayed by a few courses in college or my experience in the senior research program. He emphasized working toward training in areas that were of interest to me. Good thoughtful advice—the kind we all need during our careers.

Off to graduate school—a biochemistry and molecular biology program at Cornell University working with another inspiring mentor—Dr Quentin Gibson. For the majority of a long career, Quentin studied reaction kinetics of heme proteins and spent his career improving our understanding of how small molecules bind hemoglobin by looking at the speed of these interactions. ³ He set the course of my career—learning about “how” events occur by understanding factors that determine their time courses and concentration dependencies. He was an equally important influence on my career trajectory. Quentin died in 2011. I feel I never fully conveyed to him the depth of appreciation I have for my time in his research group or for his skillful mentoring—not telling me what to do, but having expectations of what a graduate student should do in pursuing a research program and in synthesizing results to reach a better understanding of the world around us.

Maybe, the most important lesson from thinking about my long career is to remind myself to say thanks to those who helped along the way and step back to say thanks to those whose contributions make such a difference only through the perspective of time. Thank you, Dr Gibson.

All my work derives from my experiences during undergraduate and graduate training programs in chemical kinetics. I worked with 2 premier kineticists and remain a kineticist at heart. My supervisor in the US Navy from 1972 to 1978, Commander Larry Jenkins, said about me—you can take the boy out of kinetics, but you can’t take kinetics out of the boy. A totally accurate summation of my interests.

What Was Your Pivotal Moment in Deciding to Pursue a Career in Scientific Research?

I went off to graduate school to learn about chemistry working within biological systems (biochemistry) and prepare myself to do something related to these areas in my “adult, postgraduate school” life. Not consciously planning on a research career but pursuing what today would be called some science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) activity. Nonetheless, the almost unspoken expectation in graduate school was training sequentially by doing a PhD, taking a postdoc, and then finding a faculty position in a biochemistry-related area. My topic in graduate school at Cornell was oxygen binding to lamprey hemoglobin. ⁴ Lamprey are very primitive animals—jawless fish. My plan after graduate school was to study oxygen binding to hemoglobin in large, warm-bodied fish (they are warm bodied because of heat-conserving vascular adaptations in their large muscles). It looked like I was on track for a career in comparative biology of hemoglobin function in different animal species and headed off to a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr Frank Carey ^5,6 at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute on Cape Cod in Massachusetts about an hour away from my Cranston, Rhode Island roots. The stars looked like they were completely aligned for a successful career in biochemistry close to family. But, life and toxicology got in the way.

Who (or What) Had the Biggest Impact on Your Career and Why?

Unquestionably, the answer is the US Selective Service System working in concert with accidents of age (still draft-eligible at 26) and world events in Southeast Asia. On my way to planning for a postdoctoral assignment in Woods Hole, I received a letter from the draft board in West Warwick, Rhode Island, saying I would be drafted at the beginning of 1971. Panic. I went into downtown Ithaca, New York, to various recruiters to see about opportunities other than becoming a 26-year-old draftee in the army. The navy recruiter said I was fortunate—The Navy needed a biochemist in Bethesda, Maryland. They signed me up and scheduled my arrival to active duty for summer 1971. My posting, with a wife and infant daughter, was to the US Navy Toxicology Unit (NTU) ⁷ in Bethesda, Maryland, as a clinical chemist. The NTU was founded in 1959. Its mission was “providing technical and specialized services in the fields of operational toxicology and health engineering as related to toxicity problems encountered aboard ships and in the design and use of new weapons and to develop and provide biological data necessary for determining permissible exposure limits so that precautionary measures, conducive to good health practices, may be prescribed.”

My well-constructed career plans were now shot. It was a disappointment to interrupt my plans for a career in comparative biology. However, I thought military service and the work at NTU ⁸ were temporary detours. The reality was different—the start of an engaging career in much more applied arenas—toxicology, interpretation of toxicology tests results, and human health risk assessments. Honestly, little of my long career in toxicology was planned. I am an “Accidental Toxicologist” and remain more a tactician, making the best of what comes my way, than a strategist.

Please Tell Us About Your Proudest Accomplishments

They are not related to my scientific career. I’ve been married for 48 years to a girl, Christine Jaeger, who was in my high school chemistry class. We have 3 daughters—who are loving, considerate, accomplished young women and, altogether, they are now raising 5 boys. My marriage and my family are my proudest accomplishments; nothing else is even close. But, it took the 5 of us to make a family and it’s hard for me to take any special credit.

Actually, that’s also how I feel about most accomplishments in my professional life. It takes teams to be successful in any large endeavor and it is really inappropriate to take special credit when so many folks contributed along the way. When I worked as a civilian employee in the air force, we had a poster on the wall—“It’s surprising what can be accomplished when no one has to get the credit.” There’s a lot of truth in this.

If You Had to Do Any One Thing Over Again, What Would It Be?

I don’t really go in much for second guessing. Blues music, especially with a harmonica involved, is a love of mine. One song with which I resonated was “If I had my life to live over, I’d marry a millionaire.” These alternate outcomes are not things we control. We just make the best of what comes our way, learning at each step. All the steps are important in creating the canvas of our lives. It’s been a great career—good family, intelligent colleagues, caring mentors, curious students, warm friends, and more opportunities than I ever could have imagined.

OK, though, maybe there are some minor regrets. I would like to have worked more with students in teaching and mentoring. With various colleagues, I have contributed to many short courses in physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling and risk assessment over the past 30 years, but participating in these courses is not the same as engaging students over a semester, supervising graduate education, or developing teaching plans and curricula. I did spend and thoroughly enjoyed 4 years on faculty in the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences, part of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University, from 1999 to 2002. It would have been great to spend more time in academics, but then I’m not sure what would now be missing from my career had I stayed in academics.

Any Advice for Young Scientists?

As I learned in Boy Scouts—be prepared. Detours and new roads will surely come your way and you should try some of them. When these changes come (even when forced on you as happened with me and military service), make sure you enjoy what you do or find out how to do something you enjoy. You also never know what you might enjoy or miss when it’s gone from your routine. I dreaded joining the navy. It would require me to wear a uniform and salute people. When I left military service, what I missed most was wearing a uniform, not worrying about what to wear each day, and saluting. It turned out that saluting, for me, was a way to acknowledge other people and say hello. Greeting people as I walk by in the morning remains a routine for me.

Do You Have Any Stories You’d Like to Share—Scientific or Otherwise?

Maybe, I’ll recount a story about myself and note 3 quotes from books or interviews whose messages remain important to me. First, the personal anecdote about my early scientific career.

My mom was supportive of whatever career I wanted to pursue. But, she always said she knew I was destined to be a scientist from about age 3 or 4. She tells the story of an afternoon watching planes depart from Hillsgrove Airport in Warwick, Rhode Island. The family—Mom, Dad, my brother, and sister—would go out, get ice cream cones, drive to a parking lot across from the airport, finish the ice cream, and watch planes land and take off. She relates that one day I watched a plane fade into the distance and asked—“But Mommy, how do the people get little.” This was my first step toward asking questions and searching for ways to answer them.

Next the quotes, all 3 of them are simply reminders of the need to be open to new ideas and avoid ruts.

Tom Robbins in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, wrote “Success can eliminate just as many options as failure.” In essence, remain conscious of the constraints caused by continued success and be open to growth opportunities provided by life’s failures.

Linus Pauling (1901-1994) won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the Nobel Peace Prize. Toward the end of his life, he gave an interview that was broadcast on PBS. He was asked how he had so many good ideas during his career. He smiled and said something like—“The trick is to have lots of ideas. You never heard about most of my ideas.” As practicing research toxicologists, we shatter most of our ideas and hypotheses by carefully planned experiments and need to keep a steady stream of new ideas coming along.

And finally, Will Rogers (1879-1935), an American humorist, provided a warning about established wisdom—“It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.”

Probably, picking these as particular bits of wisdom to share more broadly says a great deal about my own personality and my approach to science and life in general.

If You Had Not Decided on a Career in Science, What Would You Have Done With Your Life?

There are a lot of things I might have tried—nuclear physics, observational cosmology, a career as a naval officer (in the Medical Service Corp at least). All of them though would have been STEM-related. Probably, any of these paths could have worked, but I put my energy into toxicology and risk assessment during an era of great changes in our understanding of biology and the biological consequences of perturbations of biology by chemicals and physical stressors. The cards in my hand when joining the navy—training and inclination—were such that I was prepared when the opportunity arose to pursue a career in toxicology using skills drawn for other disciplines. The navy and air force also allowed me to appreciate teamwork in pursuing larger goals. It’s really hard for me to see someone with my disposition and interests finding success in life in other than a scientific discipline. I was fortunate that “toxicology found me.”

How Would You Like to be Remembered in 20 Years?

This is like writing an obituary while still coherent. What an opportunity!

Mel was a good husband, father, and granddad. His grandsons first, and then nearly everyone else, called him “Paco” in his later years. In his toxicology life, he worked hard at his craft and, despite some grouchy tendencies, was generally kind to people and supportive of diverse ideas and opinions, even if he remained a bit pigheaded now and then about his own hypotheses and beliefs. Along with several friends, primarily Harvey Clewell, Mike Gargas, John Ramsey, and Dick Reitz, he brought PBPK modeling into the toxicology and risk assessment mainstream and helped bring a more quantitative set of dosimetry tools into toxicology. His interests continually changed and he had trouble keeping steady work. In a 45-year career, he held 7 different positions, finding some level of achievement and satisfaction in each of them. His contributions did not wither when he faded from sight but became part of the fabric of toxicology, practiced by a broad set of intellectual descendants who progressed the field far beyond what Mel or any single person could have hoped to accomplish on their own.

Is There Anything Else That You’d Like to Share/Comment On?

Especially for younger scientists, don’t be afraid to try new ideas or to learn new disciplines. The problems we work on in toxicology don’t really change so much across generations, but the tools, technologies, and understanding of the biology affected by chemicals are part of an ever-changing palette. Try to continually look at old problems with new eyes rather than clinging to limited tool sets throughout your career. And, take everything, including what you think or are told is true, with a grain of salt.

Thank you so much for sharing your story, and congratulations on your award!