Gregory Robert Mundy 1942–2010

The bone and mineral research field lost a great leader on February 25, 2010, when Gregory R Mundy passed away at home with his family in San Antonio, Texas. Greg is survived by his wife of 47 years, Helen, and children Gavin, Ben, and Jennifer.

Born in Templestowe, Melbourne, Australia, in 1942, Greg earned an M.B.B.S. degree at Melbourne University in 1966 and completed a two-year residency at the Royal Hobart Hospital. He joined the University of Tasmania as lecturer in medicine in 1970, where he worked under Professor Albert Baike, conducting research on multiple myeloma, earning an M.D. after completing a research thesis on that subject.

Leaving Australia for the University of Rochester in New York, USA, Greg initially began work in clinical pharmacology but subsequently joined with Larry Raisz, who led him into the field of bone biology. Greg followed Larry to the University of Connecticut in 1978, leaving for the University of Texas Health Science Center in 1980, where he remained for 26 years.

In 2006, Greg accepted the position of director of the Vanderbilt Center in Bone Biology and the John A. Oates Chair in Translational Medicine at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. He remained at Vanderbilt and continued to work throughout his illness.

During his career, Greg published over 540 papers, reviews, and book chapters; trained more than 150 postdoctoral fellows; edited two books; was granted 34 patents; and founded four biotechnology companies. He served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, Bone, Calcified Tissue International, BoneKEy, and the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Greg served as president of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research and the International Society for Bone and Mineral Research, as well as on the boards of both the National Osteoporosis Foundation and the International Myeloma Foundation. He was one of the founders of the Cancer and Bone Society, which he served as president. He also was a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.

Greg's many awards include the Fuller Albright Award and the William F Neuman Award of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, an NIH Merit Award, and the University of Texas Presidential Distinguished Scholars Award. He was in the top 2% of all NIH awardees with extramural funding over the past 25 years, served on NIH Study Sections, and was a member of the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Disorders from 1997 to 2001.

Greg was one of the world's most influential leaders in bone research, a deeply respected educator, and a beloved colleague—as illustrated by each of the personal tributes below.

Lynda F Bonewald

University of Missouri-Kansas City

Kansas City, Missouri, USA

Greg Mundy was an acknowledged leader in bone research for more than 30 years and was one of the most creative thinkers in the field. He made many contributions to the bone field, including seminal observations on the role the marrow microenvironment and bone cells play in tumor growth, as well as many other fundamental observations of bone cell biology. He was a man who viewed life as a competition and excelled in every aspect of his life, whether it was family, research, or athletics. Even though Greg was highly competitive, he was a caring individual who was devoted to his colleagues and family.

Greg had the highest level of scientific integrity and a tremendous ability to “think outside the box.” Greg constantly brought new ideas and new investigators from other disciplines into bone research, as well as inviting outstanding investigators outside the bone field as plenary speakers to important bone meetings. He read the literature extensively and was familiar with research both within and outside the bone field. Greg never seemed to stop thinking about research and was constantly bouncing new ideas off the group when we were together in San Antonio. He had tremendous organizational and leadership skills, as demonstrated by the rapid establishment of the Vanderbilt Bone Program in a very short time.

On a personal note, Greg introduced me to the bone field and constantly encouraged and challenged me in my research, and he was responsible for my undertaking research into Paget's disease. I was often amazed at Greg's ability to clearly and distinctly communicate novel ideas in bone cell biology, as well as his understanding of basic processes involved in normal and pathologic bone remodeling. Greg will be missed for his intellect, his energy, and his creativity in bone research.

G David Roodman

VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Greg Mundy had numerous outstanding scientific achievements, highlighted by his seminal publications in high-profile journals and awards from major scientific societies. In this regard, he was similar to many highly successful scientists. What separated him from many others was his ability to explain the complex findings of his studies, signaling pathways and disease processes, like his own vicious cycle of bone destruction caused by cancer cells. To do this, he used cartoons and drawings he had illustrators make for him in such a way that you got the message the first time and were riveted by what he had to say from start to finish. It is still easy to visualize his “jellyfish-like” osteoclasts eating bone in his early “vicious cycle” slides. Later, he peppered these talks with his enduring sense of humor and his insights into his own grave predicament.

He took his work and his determination to be the best at what he did very seriously and to the point where his group in San Antonio had more oral presentations at ASBMR than any other group for five consecutive years, a record that his beloved San Antonio Spurs basketball team could not match in the NBA finals. He had an unmatched work ethic, which was infectious. He would spend Saturday mornings after working out early at the gym in a series of meetings with postdocs and faculty going over current data, new ideas, presentations for upcoming meetings, paper revisions, or grant applications, all while he played with and often dropped his wedding ring. These could go on into the afternoon if the line of people seeking his advice was long.

Helen and their children provided the enduring type of support that is necessary for both their long marriage and the type of success that Greg achieved. He loved helping and interacting with students and young investigators in his lab, at national and international meetings, and in bars and restaurants, where he typically would pick up the bill. He laughed a lot, and he made lots of people laugh at his stories and his unusual ability to remember personal things he learned from them or heard them say months or years previously; his legacy will be enduring.

Brendan F Boyce

University of Rochester Medical Center

Rochester, New York, USA

There will never be another Greg Mundy…

Greg was a pillar of strength and an innovator for the scientific world. He was able to constantly inspire all the people interacting with him. Greg was not only a natural leader but also one of the best. He could lead without misusing his power. He encouraged others constantly to explore new areas of interest and sharpen their minds and skills so that each one individually and as a group could achieve their full potential. He became a pioneer in the bone and cancer research fields, changing the face and structure of many of the scientific societies in which he was a crucial part. Without a doubt, his contributions will stand the passing of time, and he will be remembered as one of the most respected and influential individuals in these areas.

Always seeking to make a difference, Greg would inspire with great strength but mostly with such conviction that every step he was willing to take was worth the risk because eventually it would cause a big effect in the scientific community, and it did. The fruits of his leadership are spread throughout the world with colleagues that respected, admired, and loved him dearly.

Because he had such a strong sense of self, a quality not often found, Greg was constantly at the forefront of change, a visionary seeking strategic alliances and always finding an endless range of opportunities to collaborate with colleagues and followers around the globe. He was a tireless and very skilled communicator with great demand as a lecturer, often considered the best speaker at national and international meetings. This was the case even two months before his death at the Breast Cancer Symposium in San Antonio.

Greg was not only a pillar to the scientific community but also and in particular to his friends and family, and his remarkable personal qualities made him so loved and approachable. I had the privilege of working with him for 28 years, and he became one of my dearest friends and my family in the United States. He had a profound influence on me personally and professionally because of his brilliance, kindness, and dedication but mainly just because he was the warm person that he was.

Greg's fighting spirit and courage turned out to be even more evident in the face of a terrible disease, which he embraced with optimism and dignity. To the very end, he continued to enjoy life and work, always concerned about the well-being of everybody he was leaving behind. I will treasure every memory I shared with him and his family and forever be grateful.

As I said at the beginning, there will never be another Greg Mundy. Dear Greg, until we meet again.

Gloria E Gutierrez

Vanderbilt University and Medical Center

Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Among the many important contributions that Greg Mundy made, I would like to especially note that Greg is one of the leading mentors of the Japanese bone community. He trained more than 10 Japanese postdoctoral fellows while he served as head of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. Greg must have been proud that almost all the posdocs he trained have remained in academia after returning to Japan and have continued to work on bone research. Greg also must be proud that many of these individuals have been or are being promoted to full professor mainly because of their accomplishments in San Antonio under Greg's supervision.

I have always been very proud that I was the very first of Greg's postdocs and the first Japanese researcher to work with Greg. I still vividly remember working in his lab at the University of Connecticut from 1977 to 1979. Greg was then an associate professor and clearly a rising star in the field of osteoclast biology. His lab was a small one. There were only three people, including two technicians and myself. When we had a big experiment, not only the technicians and I but also Greg himself did the lab work, sitting next to me and complaining about having designed that experiment. I will never forget those good old days.

On behalf of the Japanese Society of Bone and Mineral Research, I am grateful to Greg that most of his former trainees are now senior members of the JSBMR council who support and advance bone research in Japan. In addition, these individuals, in turn, also attract many undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to the bone field and train these young people in a fashion similar to Greg's form of training. These young scientists are sort of Greg's “grandchildren,” who will certainly be among the next generation of leaders in bone research.

The bone community has lost a great pilot. However, the Japanese “children” of Greg Mundy will keep going with his mentorship guiding them.

Toshiyuki Yoneda

Osaka University Graduate School of Dentistry

Suita, Osaka, Japan

Greg Mundy had a profound impact on the lives of many: students, postdocs, friends, and colleagues. I am one of the 150 trainees who had the opportunity to experience this firsthand. I met Greg in February 1989, when I interviewed for a fellowship in endocrinology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. As a trailing spouse, I sought to secure clinical training in San Antonio but had no idea of how my career would evolve. The day after my interview, I was notified of acceptance into the endocrinology fellowship program, and I was also notified that I would work with Dr Mundy. Little did I know how my life was about to change.

On my very first day on the Endocrine Consult Service, we were asked to see a man with hypercalcemia of malignancy owing to lung cancer. Several days later, he rolled over in bed and fractured his hip. He was found to have a solitary metastasis to the hip. When I reported this to Dr. Mundy, he got very excited. “Now is the time to start your research project,” he exclaimed. “Go to the operating room during the hip repair, collect some tumor tissue, and take it to the laboratory.” Although I was skeptical that this would lead to a research project, I was a dutiful fellow and followed my mentor's instructions. With the help of Toshi Yoneda, I learned how to culture cells and make tumors in mice. The mice became hypercalcemic, and we discovered that the tumor secreted parathyroid hormone–related protein.

I was surprised to find that I loved working in the laboratory. Today I remain surprised when I think of how this serendipity of events determined a research career that spanned the next 20 years. But it is clear that one person made this career possible. Greg Mundy had boundless enthusiasm for research, teaching, and mentoring. He was the epitome of a physician-scientist and a pioneer in the field of cancer and bone. Most of all, he had a vision for a new endocrinology fellow, 20 years ago, and that fellow, eternally grateful, will never forget Greg Mundy's impact.

Theresa A Guise

Indiana University School of Medicine

Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

Greg Mundy was an inspirational leader whose career was one of consistent, remarkable achievement over four decades. Before leaving Australia, he carried out clinical research on multiple myeloma, and after joining Larry Raisz in Rochester, Greg made the connection to myeloma and bone resorption that led to the spectacular achievement of two New England Journal of Medicine papers in the first 18 months of training, showing osteoclast-activating factor (OAF) produced by myeloma cells—this became the byword for how blood cancers could affect the skeleton.

Greg rapidly became a leader in research on the cells and cytokines of bone—such that over the next three decades very little happened in bone cell biology that was not influenced by Mundy research, and more than any other individual, he revealed the importance of the bone microenvironment in determining cancer invasion.

Greg remained unmistakably Australian throughout his decades in the United States. As a medical student, he was a star sportsman in cricket and baseball and a highly competitive and aggressive performer in both. That competitiveness came through throughout his academic career and was important to its success, but it was accompanied by great warmth and charm of personality—it was easy to be at the same time his competitor and his friend. He was a man of great integrity.

His taking on directorship of the Vanderbilt Center in Bone Biology in 2006 was typical of his adventurous spirit, and its rapid success and activity are a standing legacy. Throughout his illness, he was full of ideas and vitality. Consistent with the character and determination that he showed in all other aspects of his life, Greg lived through this illness with great grace and dignity, with the help of his loving family. He is sadly missed.

T John Martin

St Vincent's Institute of Medical Research

Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia