Abstract
Dr Harihara M. Mehendale, renowned toxicologist, revered mentor, an outstanding educator, and the former editor of the International Journal of Toxicology passed away on October 13, 2022, in Dallas, TX. Dr Mehendale (Figure 1) was born on January 12, 1942, in a small village located on the central-western coast of what was then the Colonial India. His parents were subsistence farmers with extremely limited resources. His childhood and early adult life until he settled in the US was characterized by challenges and hardships.
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Like many a great people, Dr Mehendale took this adversity and forged it into an iron will to succeed, obtained strong moral values and a zest for life. Dr Mehendale would be the first from his family to go to college or travel beyond the state lines, let alone abroad. His educational path was extremely treacherous. To begin with, there was no school in the village where his family had a small farm. Some of his earliest memories about attending school were of walking for miles through flooded rivers and snake infested dirt paths to get to the single room schoolhouses where he obtained a basic education. While life was tough, Dr Mehendale was always strongly supported in his quest for education by his father and his uncle. After his elementary education near his ancestral village, he moved in with his uncle for his further education. His uncle had a stable but transferable job, which meant Dr Mehendale would move around quite a bit during his school years changing several schools until he obtained his high school diploma. Not only was this a time of persona challenge for Dr Mehendale, but it was also a time of turmoil and change in the newly independent India. Resources were limited and opportunities were even more scarce. Most good students chose one of two career pathways, medicine or engineering. However, both of these required substantial financial recourses, which was a challenge for Dr Mehendale. Instead, he decided to choose a different path, something that he would always do in his later life. Dr Mehendale entered an agricultural college and in 1963 graduated with a Gold Medal topping the list all three years of his bachelor’s degree program. Dr Harihara M. Mehendale (1942 to 2022).
His time at the agricultural college had broadened his horizons. Dr Mehendale now knew about the larger world, had read about America and the opportunities that existed abroad. He made the brave decision to leave rural India and travel to the US to obtain graduate education. This was no small feat given that he had no money and very little information. Such challenges never stopped Dr Mehendale from chasing his dreams. He borrowed money, left his beloved family including his parents and siblings behind, and took a leap of faith by moving to the US. Dr Mehendale arrived in the US in 1964 with $8 in his pocket and a mind full of dreams to join the MS program at the North Carolina State University in 1964. He found mentorship from some of the leading scientists of the time, a time when toxicology was just beginning to assert itself as a separate discipline. This included Dr Ernest Hodgson, the founding Head of the Department of Toxicology, the first independent such department in the US, at the NC State School of Agriculture. He was further helped by Dr Frank Guthrie, Associate Dean of the Graduate School at NC State, and by Dr Walter Dauterman, a chemist working on pesticides at NC State. Dr Mehendale obtained an MS in 1966 and continued his research work to complete his PhD in 1969, both under the able mentorship of Dr Ernest Hodgson. Following his PhD, he did his first postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr H. Wyman Dorough at the University of Kentucky in Lexington KY. A major career break came when Dr Mehendale joined NIEHS in Research Tringle Park, NC, in 1971 as a visiting scientist later to be promoted as the Staff Fellow. He remained at NIEHS till 1975 honing his research skill and preparing for an illustrious academic career. Dr Mehendale began his independent academic career in 1975 in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, MS. He was promoted through the ranks and became a full professor within a short period of 5 years in 1980 and also assumed the directorship of the NIEHS funded Toxicology Training Program in 1982. In 1992, Dr Mehendale moved to the University of Louisiana at Monroe (formerly known as Northeast Louisiana University) as the inaugural Kitty DeGree Endowed Chair in Toxicology and professor of toxicology where he remained till his retirement in 2016.
Dr Mehendale had an eminent and long career studded with numerous accolades. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Toxicology from 1999 to 2009. He received numerous accolades over the years, including the Burroughs Wellcome Scholarship in 1993, the prestigious Education Award (2001) and the Distinguished Toxicology Scholar Award (2010) both given by the Society of Toxicology (SOT) in 2001, and the Lifetime Achievement Award (2007) given by the American College of Toxicology (ACT).
Scientific Impact
The first few years of Dr Mehendale’s long scientific career were spent in trying to carve a scientific niche for himself. He worked on what was fashionable then, ADME of chemicals, especially the biliary excretion, and he mainly focused on various pesticides including Mirex and Kepone (also called Chlordecone). Towards the end of the 1970s, he started working with carbon tetrachloride and its mixtures with other organochloride chemicals. By the mid-1980s, he had discovered the phenomenon which would become his primary scientific quest and legacy—tissue repair after chemical injury. Dr Mehendale discovered that while initial liver toxicity induced by a chemical may depend on various factors including its metabolism and antioxidant defense status of the cell, but once the cells die, the ultimate survival of the animal depended upon how well it initiated compensatory liver regeneration response. 2 Starting around 1988 until the end of his active research career in 2016, Dr Mehendale devoted all his efforts in studying “tissue repair,” the toxicodynamic process where the organ responds to injury by mounting a compensatory regenerative response. He used multiple chemicals to show that tissue repair process follows the cardinal rule of dose response in toxicology. His work conducted mainly in the liver but also in kidney, blood, and lung, demonstrated that as chemical-induced injury increases, there is a corresponding increase in compensatory tissue regeneration. Injury and repair are opposing processes and up to a threshold dose, and prompt tissue repair always thwarts the progression of tissue injury resulting in complete recovery from injury. However, beyond the threshold dose, several mechanisms actively inhibit tissue repair leading to unabated progression of tissue injury ultimately leading to organ damage and animal death. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Dr Mehendale went on to demonstrate that many factors including sex, age, nutritional status, and existing disease affect tissue repair process and thus affect the final outcome of chemical-induced injury. Simultaneously, he worked diligently to push for inclusion of the tissue repair process in risk assessment of chemicals. While he faced significant opposition from the toxicology community during his early years, by the end of his career, his ideas on tissue repair were widely accepted and were embraced by both his contemporaries and the next generation of scientists.3,4 The work on tissue repair following toxicant-induced injury initiated by Dr Mehendale has now become an active and exciting area within the broader regenerative medicine research.
Dr Mehendale as a Mentor: His True Legacy
The most enduring legacy of Dr Mehendale is the exceptional training he provided to a number of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. In a career spanning 41 years, Dr Mehendale trained 35 postdoctoral fellows and 30 PhD students, who have gone on to have excellent careers in academia, government, and industry. Dr Mehendale was a demanding yet caring mentor, who always put his students’ needs before his. He was not only a mentor in scientific sense but also served as their life coach. Dr Mehendale and his wife Rekha (Figure 2) provided a caring and loving home away from home for all his students. This was critically important for the well-being of the students, many of whom were international students who had left their homelands and families to pursue their dreams. Mrs Rekha and Dr Harihara Mehendale.
The impact Dr Mehendale has on his trainees cannot be summed by any one person. The experiences were unique yet had the same central core of harsh discipline, solid work ethic combined with love and dedication to the student’s career. Following are few selected testimonials from Dr Mehendale’s trainees on how he impacted their lives.
Sr Principal Scientist
Boehringer Ingelheim
Postdoctoral Fellow (2001–2003)
My time in Dr Mehendale’s laboratory was a very productive period filled with life lessons for my professional as well as personal lives. I am proud to say that I am his student. I have always been awed by his patience, consistency, and love for teaching and mentoring his students. When I joined his laboratory, he first observed me for a while and understood my strengths/soft spots. He then pulled me aside one day and listed the things that I am good at and things that I need to work on. This never happened to me before, was tough to accept, but was a fact. He prepared us for real-life that filled with unknowns, surprises, and disappointments. I owe a great deal to Dr Mehendale for his mentorship which I am practicing and paying it forward. I feel his legacy lives on through his students’ success.
Director
NUCARE, NITTE University, India
Postdoctoral Fellow (2002–2005)
My first meeting with Dr Mehendale was at the Indian Pharmacological Society (IPS) conference in Gandhinagar, India, in 2000 where I was presenting my poster on a diabetes project. Dr Mehendale came to my poster, asked a few questions about the development of type I & II diabetes models and luckily, I could answer to his satisfaction. This led to him offering me a postdoctoral position in his laboratory. During my postdoctoral tenure, I worked on the tolerance of aged Fischer 344 rats against chlordecone-amplified carbon tetrachloride toxicity. Interestingly, one fine day during my early animal experiments, all my experimental animals including vehicle controls showed 100% mortality! My confidence was totally shattered. I was scared to inform Dr Mehendale and face the consequences. But it had to be done. So, gathering all my shattered pieces of confidence, next morning I entered Dr Mehendale’s office and informed him expecting the worst to happen. But to my surprise, he was calm and with a smiling face he said, “accidents are sure to happen while you work”! Suggested me to repeat and motivated me by keeping his confidence in my experimental hand. His support, motivation, and inspiration have helped me come a long way and achieve what I am today. He was always my role model and will be forever my guiding soul.
Principal Toxicologist
Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health USA Inc
PhD Student (2001–2006)
I joined Dr Mehendale’s lab as a graduate student after completing my bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from India. Little did I know that this decision would lead me on along a path of unlearning whatever I learnt up until that point and learning how to think scientifically! His impact on the personal and academic lives of his students is beyond measure. To me, Dr Mehendale was an advisor, confidant, friend, mentor, critical reviewer, and role model. He taught me that success is having clarity of thought in setting objectives and then fighting to achieve them. He spent several hours to discuss my research and career goals, and he always had supportive and encouraging words. He also taught me how to effectively communicate science to any type of audience. Dr Mehendale has mentored numerous students and post-docs into becoming world-class scientists. The remarkable thing is how many others had similar experiences. His many students and postgraduate trainees have developed successful programs in their respective fields; have held influential positions in academia, government, and the corporate sector; and have continued to contribute to the discipline. I am forever grateful for the profound impact that he had on my career as a toxicologist. He will be dearly missed.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology
Former Department Head, Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology
Former Associate Dean, College of Agricultural Sciences
Oregon State University
PhD Student (1977 to 1980)
A brief summary of how Hari presented his perception of the research process to me in 1977 follows. I shared this approach with my graduate students over the 30+ years that I lead a research group. It worked for me and with few exceptions for my students. A three-step process for pursuit of my doctoral program demonstrates this: (1) Complete experiments as per design. (2) Prompt analysis of results and presentations within the institution and at a scientific meeting. (3) Throughout Step 1 and Step 2, seek and accept critical assessments to enhance integration in current scientific opinion. Within the first year of my time in Hari’s lab, we demonstrated a remarkably strong interaction between two chlorinated hydrocarbons. Feeding very low concentrations of the insecticide chlordecone to rats profoundly increased hepatic necrosis after dose of carbon tetrachloride that was marginally toxic alone. This was not explained by increased bioactivation of carbon tetrachloride in chlordecone fed rats. Subsequent work in Hari’s lab demonstrated chlordecone’s inhibition of tissue repair after carbon tetrachloride-induced necrosis as the mechanism. This was a novel conclusion broadly important in understanding liver disease. Hari was an enthusiastic advocate for a methodical approach for pursuing innovative research and maximizing impact of it. He mentored with an emphasis on enhanced awareness of key results within the discipline and development of positive relationships with colleagues.
Founder and Chief Toxicologist
Scipex Consultants, LLC
PhD Student (2012–2016)
As the last and sole student throughout in the HMM laboratory, I was privileged to spend a significant amount of time with Dr Mehendale. From my initial email to Dr Mehendale on October 7, 2008, to our final interaction on October 13, 2022, the entire experience was truly life-changing for me. Before offering me a position in the laboratory, Dr Mehendale screened me through exchanges of more than 50 emails! During this screening process, he had me read his published research articles and answer questions related to them. He also tasked me with writing a research proposal for my PhD that aligned with his research interests, designing experiments, making a presentation, writing a review article on “toxicodynamics of chemical-induced tissue injury,” and more—all before I arrived in the USA on 09 August 2012. As I worked closely with Dr Mehendale after joining the lab, I came to appreciate his unwavering passion, ambition, and determination, despite the physical challenges he faced due to a stroke. His kindness and caring nature were always present, and he not only provided exceptional mentorship but also acted as a paternal figure for me. Dr Mehendale and Mrs Rekha Mehendale made sure that I had a home away from home. They ensured that I had everything I needed to succeed, from excellent training to their personal funds. I will forever be grateful for the time I spent with Dr Mehendale and the profound impact he had on my life. Saying just “thank you” does not adequately express my gratitude for Dr Mehendale! It’s time for me to do something that would make him proud!
Professor
Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy – Pharmaceutical Sciences
East Tennessee State University
MS Student (1992–1993)
When Dr Mehendale first joined NLU (that was what ULM was called back then) as an endowed chair and started moving in, he was assigned a big lab on the second floor of Sugar Hall. This space was unused for a long time and needed a lot of cleaning and we were all invited to help clean it. On the assigned day, Dr Mehendale showed up in shorts and a t-shirt and started working on perhaps the least glamorous and most involved part of the cleaning, rather than just come in to oversee and cheer a bunch of enthusiastic graduate students, crack jokes and disappear, practices I would not have been surprised to see from someone of his stature. That day, he did the hardest work and stayed the longest time. This is one small instance of how he led by example. After I left Dr Mehendale’s lab, I kept in touch with him while pursuing a PhD in Pharmacology at LSU Health Sciences Center. Of the many things I benefitted from Dr Mehendale, perhaps the most critical one was about choosing mentors for my PhD and Post-doctoral training. I was a witness to his sagacity both by omission and commission. That is, paid a price when I didn’t listen to his advice and benefitted much by sticking to it. Much of the advice he gave me, I still pass on to other seekers, in an almost verbatim fashion.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Postdoctoral Fellow (1984–1989)
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Postdoctoral Fellow (1985–1991)
Dr Mehendale was a determined and dedicated scientist and a great educator. He played a significant role in preparing us to tackle the challenges in toxicology, look out-side the box, and make seminal contribution through research, teaching and training. Dr Mehendale showed unwavering enthusiasm for training scientists from India and dozens of scientists have benefited with highly successful careers including us. The support, love, and compassion of Dr Mehendale and Mrs Rekha Mehendale remained throughout our long post-doctoral training. We are extremely thankful and blessed that both of them acted as God Parents for Urmila when we got married in a Hindu temple. Both of them accepted our request without any hesitation and conducted our wedding at Meenakshi Temple in Houston, TX. This is just an example how Dr Mehendale took care of their students (we would say children) not only in advancing their scientific careers but also personal lives. Dr Mehendale always had an open mind and courageous personality. He never feared contradictions and challenged the science through his remarkable contribution to the field of adaptation versus toxicity. He instilled these characteristics in our lives making his legacy immortal. We are fortunate to have him as a mentor throughout our training program and played a significant role in advancing our scientific careers.
Director of Consulting
BioIVT, Kansas City, KS
PhD student (1999–2004)
The list of the things I leant from Dr Mehendale is very long! Critical thinking, integrity, hard work, zest for knowledge, perfection, resilience, and so on, but above all, self-motivation! I think that “self-motivation” that he instilled in me is what has made me who I am today. He used to say that attempting is the first step. He always insisted that if you don’t attempt for that award, or that grant, or in general, that particular task, you are guaranteed to fail 100%, but if you attempted to do it there is at least 50% chance that you will succeed. His mantra was show up, do your job the best, and then let the process decide. When I started as a PhD student in his lab, I was married for only 3 weeks before and both my husband (Udayan) and I were his students at the same time. Dr Mehendale made sure that I develop a distinct research identity and independence, sometimes hard to come in such situations. I was so fortunate that I had him as my strict mentor who guided me in the right direction at the start of my career. And not only Dr Mehendale, but I had also more in my store of fortune because I met Mrs Rekha Mehendale! She quickly became my role model. I learnt other very important life lessons from her like independence, developing strong bonds with family and friends, and going beyond to help others. The impact that Dr Mehendale has on me immense, and I will be always indebted to him for the training, mentorship, and love that I received.
Senior Vice President, DSRD & Comparative Medicine
Pfizer, Inc.
PhD student (1992–1996)
The journey began with a simple question: “I have been trying to study a compound called Thioacetamide. Would you be interested in developing this further?” I was intrigued, my mind filled with ideas formed from a review of Dr Mehendale’s body of research work till then. Encouraged by him, we jumped headlong into an exhilarating journey armed with an astonishingly simple molecule and a universe of ideas. Along the way, I was fortunate to learn the process of scientific query, clarity of communication, importance of collaboration, and mentoring. Preparations and travel to meetings became a conduit for learning the finer points of the scientific process through interesting and sometimes very funny reflections from his experiences. Perhaps the lasting lesson has been that the purpose of scientific debate is not personal triumph but progress. This legacy lives on through generations of his students and postdoctoral fellows.
Professor
Southern University, LA
Postdoctoral Fellow (July 1999–September 2001)
A great Mentor is remembered forever by his trainees and towards this end, Dr Mehendale stood out in a superbly distinguished manner. He had a unique way of inculcating values that mattered most in research, and ethics that would stand the test of time. Most all his PhD students and Postdoctoral Fellows have made it big in their chosen career path, be it research or academia or industry, which is a true testament to Dr Mehendale’s scientific acumen. While his outstanding contributions to research in toxicology and teaching commitments were alone exemplary, his attributes let everyone around to learn and imbibe such excellence. He was very straightforward and never minced words driving home his point with blunt emphasis. He never left any stone unturned in seeing his students succeed. This was ably mirrored in ensuring his students become well rounded in research requirements, presentations, networking, defending their work, and most importantly disseminating their research findings in a succinct yet confident way with utmost clarity. It will be most befitting to mention a line or two about Mrs Rekha Mehendale. She was a single woman army and treated every new and incoming student to Dr Mehendale’s team like family. Although now we miss the physical presence of Dr Mehendale, it goes without saying that His legacy will live endlessly through His beneficiaries, esteemed students, and postdoctoral fellows alike.
Director, Toxicology
Moderna, Inc.
Postdoctoral Fellow (2003–2006)
Some people come into our life and our life will change forever. I first met Dr Mehendale in the summer of 2003 when I joined his lab as his last post-doctoral fellow. I used to wonder how all the alumni from Dr Mehendale lab had certain traits that made them successful and stood out in a crowd. I found the answer after spending 3 years with him. Dr Mehendale had a big influence in my life and played a major role in shaping my career. We used to have weekly lab meetings on Saturdays, where I first learned the art of public speaking, soft skills, and the ability to handle criticism. More than a mentor, he was a fatherly figure to all of us. I cherish a lot of memories with him but the one that strikes me the most was how he and Mrs Rekha Mehendale always made us feel at home. He always walked his talk. He was a role model to all of us with his generosity, dedication, and fighting attitude. Anyone who had the privilege of knowing him has imbibed a part of him in their lives and I’m fortunate to be one among them.
Senior Director, Regulatory Affairs
Verona Pharma, Inc.
PhD Student (1993–1996)
After completing my master’s thesis, I was looking for that next opportunity to enhance my scientific journey. My master’s PI, Dr Ferguson recognized my academic goals and encouraged me to meet Dr Mehendale, the new endowed professor at NLU to discuss the opportunity to join his lab. The enthusiasm and the encouragement were infectious, and I knew I was embarking on a journey to become a wholesome professional. All through Dr Mehendale took a keen interest in ensuring that we learned to ask the right questions, deeply query our results, and take the next step. Preparing for meetings was always interesting. I remember the first time he said, “we will meet in the lab after dinner tonight to practice our posters”! The thought around the room was “Why do we need to practice posters”? Sure, enough when we presented at the meeting, one of the drug metabolism “Gurus” walked up and asked, “Can you give me a 3-min presentation”? I could only gasp at that point. Dr Mehendale in his true mentoring spirit taught us many skills including grant writing, publishing, presentations that provided many of us a springboard to succeed in our professional life. It wasn’t always “all work and no play”. Some of the fond memories include road trips in a 14-seater van to attend meetings across the country, the numerous trips to New Hampshire for Gordon Research Conferences and the fun stories and anecdotes (along with the driving adventures in Dallas and Boston traffic). I cannot end my memories without highlighting the love and support of Mrs Rekha Mehendale and for providing us a “home away from home”!
Director, Toxicology
BD, Inc
PhD Student (2000–2005)
I joined Dr Mehendale’s laboratory as a PhD student in August 2000. The five years at University of Louisiana at Monroe and Dr Mehendale’s lab has shaped my career significantly. While he trained us to conduct good science, he also spent considerable time training us on how to present our work effectively. The one example I would like to highlight is my first scientific meeting in 2001. I feared public speaking and requested Dr Mehendale that I would do a poster presentation since it my first time attending a professional society meeting. Dr Mehendale told me that I can only attend the meeting if I do a platform presentation. I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t allow but then practiced several times to give my best. To my surprise, I received my first best platform presentation award. Dr Mehendale smiled and said that he had full confidence that I will do a good job. The training and the encouragement as a graduate student I received to do the best and to overcome our fears has helped me make career decisions as well. For example, considering management responsibilities along with my current technical role. Another important aspect of his training was for graduate students to attend professional society meetings including SOT and ACT. Dr Mehendale would tell us to volunteer and network and not just attend the meetings. This is so engrained in me that even today, I feel like it is my duty to volunteer on committees or activities at meetings and give back to the Societies. I want to thank Dr Mehendale for coaching and always setting stretch goals for me that helped me expand my boundaries and explore opportunities that I wouldn’t have considered.
Professor
Department of Pediatrics
University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver
PhD Student (1998–2003)
Dr Mehendale left a deep imprint on most people he interacted with, and this was especially true for his students. He was a shining example of a compassionate, caring mentor ceaselessly focused on his students. He showed unwavering support and encouragement, always willing to go above and beyond with truly inspiring selflessness. As a young first year graduate student who had little experience in research, my experiences were no different. One of the lessons Dr Mehendale instilled in me was the importance of making mistakes. He believed that mistakes were an essential part of the learning process and encouraged us to embrace them as opportunities for growth. I will never forget his reaction when I met with him after much trepidation following a gaping error. His reaction was one of calm and assurance that while everyone makes mistakes, it is better to make them early on. His composure gave me confidence and support that really appreciated. He was patient, understanding, and always willing to offer words of wisdom when they were needed most. I will always remember the time he spent with us, helping us to navigate the ups and downs of our careers, and guiding each and every one of us towards success. Dr Mehendale’s legacy which lives with us and was much more than his scientific research findings. His contributions shaped my value system and made really focus on the things that makes work rewarding. His legacy as a mentor will live on through the many lives you touched. His kindness, selflessness, and devotion to teaching will always be remembered as one to be emulated and I am very grateful for the time I spent with him.
Vice President and Chief Toxicology Scientist
Pfizer, Inc.
PhD Student (1998–2003)
“Do you want me to give you a project, or do you want to find one yourself?” Dr Mehendale asked me in our first regularly scheduled 1:1 Friday meeting after I arrived from Mumbai, India, to Monroe, Louisiana, for my PhD in 1998. I chose the latter, and after 2.5 years and 9 failed projects, I found my thesis project to investigate mechanisms of kidney regeneration. Dr Mehendale used these initial years and my entire training as an opportunity to teach multiple work/life lessons, some of which include: 1. Take risks; that is the best way to learn and break new ground. 2. Nurture scientific curiosity and destigmatize failures. 3. Always have a “science-first” attitude with an eye on disruptive innovation. 4. Challenge the status quo, and do not hesitate to experiment. 5. Be passionate about mentoring and growing leaders. 6. Effective communication of scientific findings is as important as rigorous and reproducible scientific conduct.
Thus far, my fulfilling life is owed to many mentors and colleagues I continue to have the honor of associating with. However, without Dr Mehendale providing the initial impetus followed by his priceless and foundational coaching, I would not be who I am personally and professionally.
Executive Director of Preclinical Development
Coherus BioScience, Inc.
PhD Student (1997–2000)
It is a testament to how impactful Dr Mehendale was on my life that so many things remind me of him. While attending the Author Furst Best Poster Award competition at the 2022 ACT meeting in Denver, Colorado, recently, I found myself lost in memories of my time spent in Dr Mehendale’s lab under his watchful eye. Recollections of how my lab mates and I attended the ACT annual meeting every year with Dr Mehendale brought tears to my eyes, and how we eagerly competed for the very same Arthur Furst Best Poster Award. Dr Mehendale was like a father to me. The training in his lab was strict and rigorous, but always based on the goal of shaping his students into the best scientist he knew they could become. We attended several meetings each year, and the rule was that each student had to present
Dr Mehendale understood the power of service also, and he was insistent that each of his students do volunteer work in professional societies. When I attended the SOT annual meeting for the first time, Dr Mehendale directed me to the meeting registration desk, and told me to ask if there was anything I could do to help at the meeting. It turned out there was a lot I could help with. It is because of Dr Mehendale that I came to understand the privilege of serving toxicology societies. It is no accident that many of his students have gone on to serve in leadership positions at SOT and ACT. Of course, much of Dr Mehendale’s greatness and patience was made possible by his wife, Mrs Mehendale. In truth, both she and Dr Mehendale were deeply involved in well-being of the graduate students. I remember, each Christmas, they would carefully select useful and practical gifts for the students to make their life just a bit easier. I will always remember the profound toast he gave at my wedding. Sometimes I wonder what that poor young boy from a central-western coast farming village in Colonial India would think if he knew just how important he would be to the lives of so many? I believe he may not be all that surprised, actually. Dr Mehendale was and continues to be a truly great person: his iron will, strong moral code, and zest for life lives on in all his students.
Footnotes
Author Contribution
Apte, U. contributed to conception; all authors contributed to acquisition, analysis, and interpretation, drafted the manuscript, critically revised the manuscript, gave final approval, and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work, ensuring integrity and accuracy.
