Mary V. Gamble, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Environmental Health Sciences
Mailman School of Public Health
Columbia University

Dr. Gamble is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University.  She received her PhD from Columbia’s Institute of Human Nutrition in 1999.  Her PhD and post-doctoral work on retinoid metabolism included studies on proteins involved in retinoid transport and in the generation of transcriptionally active retinoic acid metabolites.  Dr. Gamble’s international research began with studies on vitamin A deficiency in the Republic of the Marshall Islands and in Brazil.  She joined the faculty of Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health in 2001 at which time she shifted her research focus to studies on the influence of folate nutritional status and one-carbon metabolism on arsenic metabolism and toxicity in a Bangladesh population chronically exposed to arsenic in drinking water.  On a global basis, WHO estimates that more than 140 million people in at least 70 countries are exposed to As-contaminated drinking water, most in the developing world where folate deficiency is common.  Dr. Gamble’s work identified a very high prevalence of folate deficiency and hyperhomocysteinemia in Bangladesh, and discovered that these conditions are both associated with a decreased capacity to methylate arsenic.  Dr. Gamble’s randomized controlled trial of folic acid supplementation to folate deficient Bangladeshi adults demonstrated that folic acid supplementation facilitated arsenic methylation and excretion and lowered blood concentrations of the most toxic form of arsenic, the monomethylated form, by 22%.  Considering the magnitude of the exposed population worldwide, and the severity of the numerous associated health outcomes, this work is highly significant as it implies that a simple, low-cost, low-risk intervention could have therapeutic potential for ameliorating the long-term health consequences of arsenic exposure for the many populations at risk. 

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