Louis S. Goodman (Louis Sanford Goodman; August 27, 1906 – November 19, 2000) was an American pharmacologist. He is best known for his collaboration with Alfred Gilman, Sr., with whom he co-authored the influential textbook The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics (first published in 1941) and pioneered the first chemotherapy trials using nitrogen mustard.
Life and career
Goodman was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1906. He received a 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 faculty of the Yale School of Medicine, where he met Alfred Gilman. Together they began teaching pharmacology courses and developed a textbook, published in 1941 as The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics.
While at Yale, Goodman and Gilman were assigned a government contract for nitrogen mustard research in 1942. Drawing on knowledge that the compound depleted white blood cells, the pharmacologists experimented with intravenous injections on a terminally ill lymphosarcoma patient. Although the tumor eventually regenerated and led to the patient's death, the drug's success in briefly eliminating the tumor is regarded as a historic accomplishment in chemotherapy treatment, and the compound remains in use as a chemotherapeutic agent.
Goodman was appointed an assistant professor at the University of Vermont in 1937 and became its chair of pharmacology and physiology in 1943. 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 by injecting a colleague with the relaxant.
Goodman retired in 1971 but remained in Salt Lake City, continuing to teach at the College of Medicine. He died on November 19, 2000, at the age of 94.
Personal life
Goodman married Helen Ricen in 1934, and they had two daughters, Carolyn and Debora.
Awards and honors
Goodman was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1965.
