Mary O

Mary O. Amdur, Ph.D.

Reference: Toxicological Sciences, Volume 57, Number 2, September 2000. By: Terry Gordon and Daniel Costa

To remember Mary O. Amdur, Ph.D. simply as a pioneer in air pollution toxicology, who overcame gender, political, and scientific barriers to exhort the potential for potentiative interactions between sulfur dioxide and particulate matter would be an injustice. In our discussions of what to highlight in this brief biography, we (DLC and TG) struggled with what we thought merited emphasis in this text versus what we thought Mary would want to see accented. Indeed, Mary shunned the spotlight most of her career for she felt she was simply making inquiries in small, logical steps in an attempt to unravel the mysteries of how mixtures of air pollutants interacted to adversely affect health. She was never on the conventional academic career-ladder either in fact or in spirit. Mary was a woman of principle even when it led to decisions that would take her career over the "hard-road", for she did what she felt was right despite the consequences. She valued her character and her loyalty to those she entrusted over her career, knowing that she was more than a research scientist. Though deserving of a title such as Mother of air pollution toxicology, Mary was every bit of Renaissance woman. She was, in addition, an accomplished chemist, a lover of English and French literature and music, a naturalist, a able gardener and baker, a wife and homemaker, and a loyal friend and mentor.

As a woman in the very "male-dominated" field of environmental and occupational health of the late 1940's through the 1950's, Mary Amdur's research career was blocked by a number of barriers. Mary was an exceptional student throughout her academic life. She received her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh in 1943 and in just 3 years, her Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1946 from Cornell ("Role of Manganese and Choline in Bone Formation in the Rat"). She soon moved to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston to allow her husband, Ben, to pursue his doctoral degree. In 1949, Mary relocated to the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) to work with Professor Phillip Drinker (known as the inventor of the "iron lung"). Her primary charge was to develop an assay to measure lead in ambient particulate matter. She succeeded at this task, but the success was soon forgotten in her endeavors to investigate the role of sulfur oxides and health.

Mary had become interested in air pollution following the infamous Donora, PA smog of 1948. She accepted the task to initiate investigations of the irritancy of sulfuric acid in humans under the direction of Professor Drinker supported by funds from the American Smelting and Refining Company (AS&R). The company was interested in demonstrating that sulfuric acid was a minor contributor to the adverse health effects in the Donora incident, especially any role it may have had in the observed mortality. They likely felt that Professor Drinker would keep a "watchful eye" on the research (from Muscle and Blood 1974 by Rachael Scott). However, Mary produced some very provocative data suggesting potentially adverse effects in human subjects who inhaled either or both sulfuric acid and sulfur dioxide - the latter being the main AS&R emission and one pollutant they did not want studied. In the early 1950's, very little work had been done on the cardiopulmonary effects of inhaled pollutants, except in animal studies that typically used lethality as the end point. However, Mary and her husband had conducted some earlier experiments on a long July 4th weekend, 1953, with guinea pigs purchased with their own money where they showed dramatic effects on breathing with both irritants. The data had been presented at the AAAS meeting in December, 1953, with no objections or negative sanctions. However, her findings of adverse physiologic effects in humans at relatively low concentrations - not unlike that estimated for Donora at the time of the smog incident - were met with great dismay and distaste by the lawyers of the western smelter industries, as well as executives of AS&R. She presented this and her lead work at the annual meeting of the American Industrial Hygiene Association held in Chicago in April, 1954. At the meeting, she found herself alone to out-wit the somewhat strong-armed representatives of AS&R. Meanwhile, considerable pressure, of the financial type, was put to bear on HSPH, Professor Drinker specifically, to convince Mary to withdraw her presentation and delay publication of her work. Mary did not concede and even after Professor Drinker himself withdrew the already submitted paper from the Lancet, Mary convinced him to rescind his decision and allow the paper through. The result was termination of the project and the loss of her research associate position under Drinker the very day she returned from the Chicago.
Professor James Whittenberger, Chair of Physiology at HSPH, who earlier had said he had interest in her work, rapidly hired her as a research associate to expand upon these initial efforts with the help of Dr. Jere Mead, the renowned lung physiologist. One best perceives the frustration of Mary's circumstance as she describes the growing looseness of her engagement ring on her finger during this period, and senses the outrage of academic colleagues for such shenanigans in her correspondence with other historic names in industrial medicine including Alice Hamilton, Herbert Stockinger, Harriet Hardy, Henry Smyth, Anna Baetjer, and Harold Hodge. In the end, Mary's Pennsylvania Dutch stubbornness and adherence to principle prevailed. She soon gained the reputation as one who could not be crossed more than once. With the early support of Whittenberger and Mead at Harvard, she was able to launch her air pollution research and develop a physiological animal model that, for more than four decades, became the basis of her studies to understand the interaction of particles and gases in the mammalian respiratory tract.

Although Mary was quite successful in funding her research at the HSPH, she left in 1977 for both political and scientific reasons. She was well-published and widely known for her provocative research with the guinea pig irritancy model. She had demonstrated the irritancy of sulfur dioxide and its ability to interact with water-soluble metal salts and sulfuric acid to further oxidize to the sulfate and be carried to the deep lung where its irritancy would be magnified. Despite this unique and pioneering work, her nearly 30 years at Harvard never brought her above the rank of Associate Professor without tenure. In a battle with the dean over the tenureship of her beloved colleague, Sheldon Murphy, she vowed to take her program elsewhere. She had a vision that a collaboration with metallurgical and chemical engineers would provide answers to her questions regarding the effect of the chemical and physical interaction of particles and gases on the lung. Across the river at MIT she saw such potential, and thus offered her program to the university if she could establish those liaisons. She quickly moved accepting the unheralded position of Lecturer and focused her energy on spearheading a unique project, funded by industry and federal support, to tie toxicological research to an engineering base that could produce relevant aerosols of freshly-formed combustion products from fossil fuels for inhalation exposure studies. This work led to the demonstration that physico-chemical interactions between sulfur dioxide and fresh metal oxides from coal combustion led to the formation of sulfuric acid on the surface of the metal oxide which was capable of substantial effects on the physiology and structural integrity of the guinea pig lung.

Despite her highly successful MIT program in terms of funding and notoriety, Mary remained in a non-faculty position for 11 years and saw that air pollution toxicology would remain a step-child at MIT. Thus, at the age of 67, she moved her program to the Institute of Environmental Medicine of New York University in Tuxedo Park, NY, where she merged her efforts with Drs. Rich Schlesinger and Mort Lippmann and recruited a team from her staff at MIT and around the nation to carry on her work. She gained the title of Senior Research Scientist, but was again untenured, despite her continued success in acquiring research support funds to conduct her research. Loving her home and gardens in Westwood, MA and with the eventual illness of her beloved husband, Ben, she commuted from MA to NY for two days a week driving alone to ensure the direction of her research ship. After retirement in 1996, she continued to write and consult on scientific papers emanating from NYU, edit manuscripts and preserve the legacy of her 46+ years of efforts. The lack of recognition by her employers had little effect on Mary, and frequently the contrarian, she reveled in the struggle. Not many of us could have waged the battles of Mary Amdur, achieved such success and respect, and dismissed with such grace the disservice rendered by the established academia. We should be so fortunate to have her character and strength.

Because of Mary's research accomplishments, she received many awards throughout her career, including: the 1974 Donald E. Cummings Memorial Award from the American Industrial Hygiene Association; the 1984 Henry F. Smyth Award from the American Academy of Industrial Hygiene; the 1986 Career Achievement Award from the Inhalation Section of the Society of Toxicology; and the 1989 Herbert E. Stockinger Award from the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists. Mary was also the first woman to receive the 1997 Merit Award from the Society of Toxicology. Although this last award was that which gave her the most pleasure, she looked forward to receiving it with dark humor. She was well aware that colleagues, including her close friend Sheldon Murphy, had passed away within one year of receiving the award. Unfortunately, Dr. Amdur passed away just short of one year after the award, in February of 1998.
Mary Amdur directly supervised only a handful of doctoral students, but she mentored many more with her open-door policy. Her scientific and career advice were highly influential in the development of the careers of many. Perhaps her main educational contribution lies within the covers of Cassarett & Doull's Toxicology: The Study of Poisons. She served as editor on editions 2 through 4, and played a significant behind-the-scenes role in providing support/energy to get the first edition out after Louis Casserett died during its preparation. Her tireless efforts in her painstakingly reviews of the chapters and insistence upon up-to-date accuracy and integrity were integral to the success and widespread recognition of the quality of the text.
For those of us fortunate to have known or worked with Mary, her personal attributes paralleled her scientific prowess. She was fair and honest with strong convictions, and possessed a wry wit and demeanor; yet she was infinitely compassionate to students and their plights. Her directness and insightfullness were refreshing to all, and she was an exquisite writer and editor. But her Easter-season hot-cross buns and likewise her Halloween ginger cookies were much more appreciated by her classes than any lecture outline. Mary was very much a modernday Renaissance person. She was classically literate and loved everything French. During the freer time of her retirement years, she traveled around the world exploring and studying regional flora and tending to her gardens and greenhouse. Unquestionably, she will be remembered for her impact on air pollution regulation and inhalation toxicology, but for those of us who were fortunate enough to have shared time and space with her, she will be remembered most for her intellectual enthusiasm, her nurturing of good science, and her personal caring.

By: Terry Gordon, PhD and Daniel Costa, ScD

Editor's Post-Script: Mary Amdur was a skilled and very talented gardener. She grew a wide variety of plants, poisonous species among them. She once asked the Editor if he would get a selection of Alpine seeds when he was on a trip to Zurich, Switzerland. The small packets were dutifully brought back to Boston and presented to her. The next year, she had a variety of cultivated alpine flowers, Edelweiss among them, in her garden on Rock Meadow Road in Westwood, MA. The Swiss Society of Boston, the honorary Swiss Consul, Dr. Freddy Homburger and yours truly were the glad recipients of these special flowers on the Swiss National Day, the First of August.