I met Dr. Mary Ellen Avery in the summer of 1972. My mentor and thesis advisor, Dr. Dan Shannon, sent me to Montreal to spend a week with Dr. Avery when she was the Chairman of Pediatrics at McGill University and Montreal Children’s Hospital. I was just graduating from MIT with a doctorate in chemical engineering where I attempted to find a way to deliver artificial surfactant to the lungs of preterm infants via aerosol.

Dr. Shannon told Mel -- as he called Dr. Avery -- that we had something in common. He knew that Dr. Avery’s interest in lungs began . . . (read more)