Dr. Thomas Maren, A Founding Father Of UF's Medical College And Renowned Basic Scientist, Dies At Summer Home In Maine
GAINESVILLE, Fla.—Dr. Thomas H. Maren, a founder of the University of Florida’s medical college whose four decades of basic scientific research led to the development of a top-selling drug for glaucoma, died after a lengthy illness Sunday at his summer home in Bar Harbor, Maine. He was 81.
Maren was a founding father of UF’s College of Medicine, where he spent most of his career. He gained international recognition for his pioneering investigation of an enzyme called carbonic anhydrase and its role in fluid production and flow in the eyes, brain, spinal cord and lymph system.
His discoveries paved the way for the development of new drugs to treat heart and kidney disease, brain fluid disorders, altitude sickness and glaucoma. The latest and most visible outcome of his research is an eye drop called Trusopt, which was released to the market in 1995 by Merck and Company. The drug now is sold worldwide by Merck under an exclusive licensing agreement with UF.
Trusopt fills an important niche in the treatment of glaucoma, the most common cause of blindness, and is the leading income-generating product of UF research. In July 1998, donations from Maren’s share of royalty income from the sales of Trusopt were combined with state matching money to establish a $1.8 million endowed professorship in pharmacology research and teaching at UF’s College of Medicine.
Born in New York City in 1918, Maren earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry at Princeton University in 1938. He worked as a research chemist for many years before entering Johns Hopkins University medical school, where he earned his medical doctor degree in 1951. He also held a master’s degree in English from Princeton and an honorary medical doctorate from Uppsala University in Sweden.
Maren served five years as an instructor of pharmacology and therapeutics at Johns Hopkins and worked four years as a pharmacologist with American Cyanamid Co. in Stamford, Conn., before accepting appointment at UF as a professor and chairman of pharmacology and therapeutics.
Maren arrived on the UF campus in 1955, a year before the colleges of Medicine and Nursing opened as the first components of the UF Health Science Center. He helped recruit many of the charter medical faculty and helped the college prepare for its first class of students.
Until months before his death, Maren continued to work part time at the Health Science Center — a year past his retirement in June 1998 — as a graduate research professor. For several decades, he spent his summers in research at the Mt. Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Salsbury Cove, Maine, which established a lectureship in his honor.
Private funeral services are scheduled in Maine on Thursday, and plans are being made for a memorial service to be held later at the University of Florida.
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Arline Phillips-Han