Rutgers researcher studies mold vapors for link to illnesses

“I happen to be a mold expert. I will continue to study it until I drop,” declared Joan Bennett, 71, of Somerset, N.J., a plant biology and pathology professor and researcher in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University.

Bennett recently discovered that mushroom alcohol, a compound often emitted by mold, might be linked to symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. The findings, coauthored by Arati Inamdar, 34, of Edison, a research associate at Rutgers, were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in November.

Photo via Rutgers

Joan Bennett of Rutgers used samples from

her flooded home for her mold research.

The investigation was conducted in conjunction with researchers from Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Emory University and funded by Rutgers and the National Institutes of Health.

Although Bennett spent most of her early career studying agricultural molds that are toxic to humans if eaten directly or consumed by contaminated foods, she had not believed mold could be harmful to people if inhaled. But when Hurricane Katrina devastated her home in New Orleans in 2005, her opinion quickly changed.

“When I had the personal experience of having my home flood after Katrina and get covered with mold, I went in being interested in fungi,” said Bennett. “What I hadn’t been interested in before was the bad smells they put out. It was Katrina that made me say, ‘Huh, maybe molds are not only toxic when you eat them. Maybe molds are toxic when you breathe their vapors.’”

After evacuating to New Jersey, where her husband, David Peterson, grew up, Bennett returned to her home in New Orleans, which had been closed up and left to fester for more than five weeks after Katrina hit. There she collected more than 70 mold samples for new research. She came equipped with petri dishes, sterile swabs and a camera.

Photo via Rutgers

 'Mushroom alcohol' has the potential to

damage dopamine and cause symptoms 

of Parkinson’s disease.

“I planned ahead knowing that a flooded house would be covered with mold. I was setting it up to use my house as an experiment,” Bennett said. “It’s pretty bad when you lose your home, and I think turning it into an experiment helped me cope with it a bit,” she added.

Although Bennett wore protective gear, including a mask and gloves, she said she suffered from headaches, dizziness and nausea while collecting the samples.

Bennett was on the faculty of Tulane University in New Orleans for 35 years. She and her husband moved to New Jersey when she was hired at Rutgers a year after Katrina hit.

“When you lose all your research, it’s good motivation to find a new job,” she said.

In 2009, Bennett received funding to support Inamdar, a postdoctoral researcher in genetic models related to Parkinson’s disease. As the pioneer of the Drosophila or fruit fly model, Inamdar helped study the possible toxicity of chemicals from fungi on the central nervous system and respiratory system with a focus on understanding the commonly reported Sick Building Syndrome.

“We were actually seeing, yes, these chemicals, these fungi, are causing a decrease in the survival duration of the flies, and they are actually exhibiting different behaviors that were linking to their deficit in mobility,” Inamdar explained.

Of the many vapors that fungi emit, the scientists said it took years for them to be able to study the mushroom alcohol compound, which was especially debilitating to the flies, causing tremors, a slow demeanor, posture imbalances and other mobility disturbances.

“It’s kind of like the smell of coffee. There are lots of different compounds that go into making that wonderful coffee aroma,” Bennett said. “It’s sort of the same way with the musty smell of mold growing in your basement. It’s not just one vaporous compound; it’s lots of them,” she explained.

Many of the mold samples taken from Bennett’s home in New Orleans turned out to be the same type, many of which produced mushroom alcohol. She said the compound is not dangerous in small doses.

Bennett and Inamdar are currently measuring the toxicity of mold in samples taken from homes that were flooded by Superstorm Sandy. After receiving permission from FEMA officials and homeowners who were in the process of renovating their homes, the researchers collected nearly 40 samples from houses near Point Pleasant last year. They plan to go back to the homes later this month to search for more samples now that the restorations have been completed and the individuals are living in their homes again.

The mold from Bennett’s house during Katrina grew from largely brackish water in warmer weather. The mold from homes during Sandy grew from salty, ocean water in colder weather. The different experiments are ongoing.

“It’s not nearly as far along as the Katrina work,” said Bennett. “Hurricane Sandy was last year, but we didn’t collect the samples until December and January so we haven’t had as long a time to work on it. Science unfortunately goes pretty slowly.”

Bennett said she is especially interested in the chemical differences between the different populations of fungi and what compounds, if any, are more toxic to human health.

“We haven’t completed the study, but my sense is that having mold in your house, whether it’s cold-weather mold or hot-weather mold, is not good for you,” she said.

Bennett hopes mold problems will be taken more seriously in the future and that national funding will eventually support scientific research into the causes and diagnoses of these issues. Although homeowners appear to be concerned about mold in their homes, she said, she does not believe public health agencies are concerned enough about the detrimental affects it could have on people.

Although many people recognize that a lot of bacteria and viruses can make humans sick, she said, many people underestimate the fact that fungi can do that, too.

“Some people say, ‘Oh, mold has been around forever.’ And that’s true, but that doesn’t mean that everything that’s been around forever is natural and is good,” said Bennett. “It’s common knowledge that lots of mushrooms contain poisons. So if you have any sense at all, you don’t just randomly eat a mushroom.

“I think people can also recognize that mold and moldy houses and moldy castles and moldy native huts have been around forever, but that doesn’t mean that living in them is good for you, either,” she added.

— Kelley Anne Essinger

This article was published in The SandPaper.