Louis Goodman | |
---|---|
Born |
Portland, Oregon |
August 27, 1906
Died | November 19, 2000 Salt Lake City, Utah |
(aged 94)
Fields | Pharmacology |
Institutions |
Yale School of Medicine University of Vermont University of Utah |
Alma mater |
Reed College (B.S.) University of Oregon (M.D.) |
Known for | Experimental chemotherapy; The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics |
Notable awards | National Academy of Sciences (1965) |
Spouse | Helen Ricen (1934–1996) |
Children | Carolyn, Debora |
Louis Sanford Goodman (August 27, 1906 – November 19, 2000) was an American pharmacologist. He is best known for his collaborations with Alfred Gilman, Sr., with whom he authored the popular textbook The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics in 1941 and pioneered the first chemotherapy trials using nitrogen mustard.
Goodman was born in Portland, Oregon in 1906 and received his B.A. from Reed College in 1928 and an M.D. from the University of Oregon Medical School in 1932. After interning at Johns Hopkins Hospital, he joined the Yale School of Medicine faculty, where he met Alfred Gilman. They began teaching pharmacology courses together and began to develop a textbook, which was published as The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics in 1941.
While at Yale, Goodman and Gilman were assigned a government contract in nitrogen mustard research in 1942. With knowledge that the compound depleted white blood cells, the pharmacologists experimented with intravenous injections on a terminally ill lymphosarcoma patient in Gustaf Lindskog's care. Though the tumor regenerated and killed the patient, the drug's success in briefly eliminating the tumor is considered a historic accomplishment in chemotherapy treatment, and the compound is still used as a chemotheraputic agent.
Goodman was appointed an assistant professor at the University of Vermont in 1937, and became its chair of pharmacology and physiology in 1943. Then, in 1944, he moved to Salt Lake City to found a department of pharmacology at the University of Utah College of Medicine. There, Goodman demonstrated that the paralysis induced by curare was temporary, which he did by injecting a colleague with the relaxant.