Former Dean of Dartmouth Medical School Stephen Spielberg was appointed the deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, food and drug commissioner Margaret Hamburg wrote in an internal memo to the FDA on Wednesday.
"The appointment was part of a reorganization at the top of the nation's leading medical- and food-safety agency," the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
Spielberg will be instrumental to the operations of the FDA in his new position as deputy commissioner for medical products and tobacco, Hamburg said in the memo.
"In this role, Dr. Spielberg will serve as both advocate and a support for center directors in their important work for FDA," Hamburg said.
David Nierenberg, doctor of pharmacology at DHMC, said in an interview with The Dartmouth that he thinks Spielberg will be "terrific" in his new post.
"I've probably worked with him as much as anyone around here, and I think very highly of Steve Spielberg," Nierenberg said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Spielberg has many qualities that make him well suited for his recent FDA appointment, Nierenberg said.
"He has very strong ties to industry, and they respect him," he said. "He's fair, he's balanced and he's respected in academia."
Spielberg "really knows the ins and outs of drug development and testing for safety, especially in kids," which will be particularly useful for his future work with the FDA, Nierenberg said. He added that Spielberg's previous work experience will help him in his new role.
"Since Dr. Spielberg has spent years with Johnson & Johnson, a well-respected drug and device company, he's perfect for the job," he said.
According to the Journal, the FDA's relations with medical companies "have been strained as of late," which Nierenberg attributed to the tenuous relationship between drug companies and the regulatory administration. Nierenberg said the FDA often suffers from lack of funding and understaffing, which in turn slows down the approval processand can create tensions, Nierenberg said.
"In an ideal world, it does its best job when it has a regulatory relationship with the drug companies that isn't too close, but that is not antagonistic," he said. "If the FDA is trying to develop an ethical responsible relationship with industry, he's a wonderful guy to do that."
Spielberg has primarily researched medicating and administering drugs to children, according to Nierenberg, and is "one of the best-known pediatric pharmacologists."
"He was conducting some beautiful research into why some children respond so badly to sulfa antibiotics," Nierenberg said. "Every once in a while, a kid gets very sick from it, and he was the smart one who discovered why some kids get sick and some kids don't."
Spielberg has more recently been researching at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., and has served as director of personalized medicine at the hospital, the Journal reported.
In addition to his work in drug development at Johnson & Johnson, Spielberg also pursued academia both in the U.S. and in Toronto, Canada, before he was eventually tapped to head DMS, according to Nierenberg. Former College President James Wright appointed Spielberg as dean in 2003.
At Dartmouth, Spielberg was "very supportive" of Nierenberg's vision of the medical school's curriculum, Nierenberg said, adding that Spielberg periodically served as a guest lecturer on pediatric pharmacology.
During his tenure at dean, Spielberg was concerned with strengthening programs at both DMS and DHMC, Nierenberg said. Spielberg also served as a Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center pharmacologist and pediatrician in addition to DMS dean.
"One of his highest priorities and unfortunately it didn't happen in his four years he was really excited about building a new building half devoted to translational research," Nierenberg said, describing this type of research as a means of testing medical hypotheses on human subjects.
Spielberg also successfully raised $27 million of the $50 million necessary for the building project prior to his 2008 departure from Dartmouth, Nierenberg said.
