Title: Former Top FDA Scientist Comes to GUMC to Launch Center
Dr. Jesse L. Goodman, who served as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s chief scientist, will lead the new Center on Medical Product Access, Safety and Stewardship at Georgetown.
FEBRUARY 27, 2014DR. JESSE L. GOODMAN, former chief scientist for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a renowned expert in infectious diseases, has joined Georgetown University Medical Center to head a new center.
Goodman will launch the new Center on Medical Product Access, Safety and Stewardship (COMPASS) at GUMC.
The goal of the new center, which falls under the Dean for Research’s office, is to address three broad areas of national and global public health importance:
medical product safety and security across the global manufacturing supply chain
antimicrobial drug resistance
access to lifesaving medical products
ENGAGING CRITICAL ISSUES
“I’m excited about the opportunity to fully engage in these critical public health issues from a robust academic perspective,” says Dr. Jesse L. Goodman, head of the new Center on Medical Product Access, Safety and Stewardship (COMPASS) at Georgetown University Medical Center.
In addition to leading COMPASS, Goodman will continue his work in infectious diseases, serving as an attending physician at the Washington DC VA Medical Center and MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.
He also is being nominated as professor in the department of medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine.
“I’m excited about the opportunity to fully engage in these critical public health issues from a robust academic perspective,” says Goodman, who officially started at GUMC earlier this month. “Addressing these complex challenges requires innovation and a broad, multidisciplinary approach involving multiple sectors at the university and beyond. There are scientific, medical, regulatory and policy dimensions, as well as the need to effectively harness and analyze massive data sets.”
PUBLIC HEALTH LEADER
After joining the FDA, Goodman founded and co-chaired the first U.S. Task Force to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance and then directed the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.
In those roles and as FDA’s chief scientist from 2009 until this month, he worked extensively and collaboratively with industry, academia, government and global public health partners to prepare for and respond to major public health threats, emerging infectious diseases and terrorism, including leading FDA’s response to West Nile Virus and to the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic.
The executive vice president for health sciences at GUMC describes Goodman as a “leader in public health” who combines years of policy experience with a long career in academia.
WEALTH OF EXPERIENCE
“Jesse brings a wealth of expertise spanning science, medicine, regulation and public health, and has a proven record in addressing pressing public health needs from both the academic and federal sectors,” says Dr. Howard J. Federoff, who also serves as executive dean of the Georgetown School of Medicine. “We look forward to his leadership in this vitally important area.”
Prior to joining the FDA, Goodman was director of the division of infectious diseases and professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota, where his National Institutes of Health-funded laboratory isolated and characterized the causative agent of a new tick-borne disease.
He received his A.B. in biology from Harvard College, his M.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and his M.P.H. from the University of Minnesota.
COMPLEX ISSUES
Goodman says that broad collaboration and expertise is key to the success of COMPASS, and intends to pursue both regional and global engagement of public health and government officials, other academic institutions, industry and other partners.
“Right now many people are concerned but are typically seeing just a part of the elephant – there have not been broad, systematic approaches to dealing with highly complex issues such as antimicrobial drug resistance or medical product safety,” Goodman says. “We need to be thinking of how to address these problems across systems.”
Federoff says he has every confidence in Goodman’s ability to make COMPASS a great success.
“With his expertise spanning science, medicine, regulation and public health, and his proven record in addressing pressing public health needs, I can think of no one better suited for this challenge than Dr. Goodman,” Federoff says.