I was born in Germany, but immigrated to
the United States before I started school. As a result, English is definitely
my best language, and my upbringing is a mixture of American and European. I
grew up in the New York suburbs and majored in biology at New York University,
then went to the University of Michigan to study genetics. At Michigan I met
and married George Francis, and when he accepted a position in the Math
department here, we moved to Champaign-Urbana. Weíve lived here ever since, and
both of our sons graduated from UIUC. I had finished my dissertation research
before we left Ann Arbor, but still had to write the thesis, which took several
years. Once I received my Ph.D., I worked as a research associate in various
departments on this campus, and in 1981 I became an assistant professor in the
Institute for Environmental Studies. I am now an associate professor in the
Entomology Department, and consider myself an environmental toxicologist,
specializing in the irreversible effects of chemicals, and especially of
pesticides, on mammalian development .
That is the biography - and if it is not
quite as brief as "There was a man. He was born and he lived, then he
died" - it is not much more informative. How did I get from a fascination
with classical genetics to teratology - which translates as the study of
monsters? From teratology to environmental toxicology? Why pesticides? And why
am I in the Entomology department? That is a much longer story, but it
illustrates Burns’ dictum that "the best-laid plans of men do often gang
awry." Or, as Shakespeare phrased it: "There is a tide in the affairs
of men which, if taken at the flood, can lead to fortune." But it also
illustrates the role of chance, or providence, in shaping a career.
I cannot claim always to have known what I
wanted to do -- my ambitions changed almost yearly until I started college.
Doctor, veterinarian, teacher, farmer, novelist -- each had their turn. But
once I decided to major in biology, I knew I wanted to do research: research in
genetics.
Chance intervened. In college, I worked in
a laboratory where one of the graduate students was studying the effects of
thalidomide. This was a supposedly safe sedative prescribed for pregnant women,
which caused terrible birth defects in some 8,000 children worldwide. I was
fascinated by the idea that chemicals could change development, and especially
by the specificity of the interactions. Thalidomide drastically damages human
embryos, but not those of mice or rats. Such differences between species in
response to developmental toxicants is remarkably common. Cortisone, for
example, rarely if cause human birth defects, but easily causes cleft palate in
mice, rats and rabbits. At Michigan, I was fortunate in finding an adviser who
let me follow my interests, even though they were not his. So my thesis
research focused on how genetics and environmental chemicals interact to cause
birth defects. This is still the center of my research.
Looking for jobs is always problematic for
academic couples, whose career opportunities are limited to universities. In
the Midwest, this often means getting two jobs in the same university, even if one
of those jobs is not ideal. Since I had not even finished my Ph.D. when we
moved to Champaign-Urbana, mine was obviously the secondary career. For several
years I worked part-time in various laboratories on campus. Serendipity came in
the form of a seemingly dead-end job: a one year temporary position reviewing
the literature on the disposal of 42 pesticides. In the event, it was my
introduction to environmental toxicology, and especially to the environmental
effects of pesticides. When I began the literature review, I "knew"
little more about pesticides than "DDT is bad". By year’s end I not
only understood how the miracle of DDT turned into an ecological nightmare, but
was convinced that pesticides are the most fascinating chemicals any
toxicologist could wish to study.
Pesticides, like antibiotics, are designed
to kill. It is their only reason for existence. But the side-effects of
pesticides are as diverse as their intended effects. A weed-killer causes birth
defects in rats and mice. Will it do so in humans? An insecticide causes
paralysis in people and chickens, but not in rats or mice - and only in adult
chickens. Why? How does DDT thin birds’ eggshells? Is there a connection
between widespread DDT contamination and the increased incidence of human breast
cancer? Here was a research area that combined relevance and basic science and
(most intriguingly) allowed me to examine the interactions of intrinsic factors
and environmental influences. I was hooked on toxicology.
Five years later, I was able to join the
faculty of the Institute for Environmental Studies and, when that unit was
dissolved in 1996, I joined the Entomology Department. I am still fascinated by
the diverse toxic effects of pesticides, and not only continue to study their
diverse toxicities, but teach a course in Pesticide Toxicology. I also teach an
overview course, “Environmental Toxicology”, that tries to give
nontoxicologists the tools to understand current - and future! - environmental
controversies ranging from global warming to mechanisms of carcinogenesis. I
still don’t know about DDT and breast cancer, but I am studying the effects of
nitrofen (a weed-killer) on gene expression in mouse embryos.