Margaret A. Goodell | |
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| Education | |
| Known for | Stem Cell Research |
| Children | 3 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Stem Cells, Cancer Biology |
| Institutions | |
| Website | https://www.goodell-lab.com |
Margaret ("Peggy") A. Goodell (born March 23, 1965) is an American scientist working in the field of stem cell research. Dr. Goodell is Chair of the Department of Molecular andCellular Biology[1] atBaylor College of Medicine, Director of the Stem Cell andRegenerative Medicine (STaR) Center,[2] and a member of theNational Academy of Medicine.[3] She is best known for her contributions to understanding how bloodstem cells are regulated.[4]
Goodell has been on the faculty of Baylor College of Medicine since 1997 as a member of the Center for Cell andGene Therapy, and the Departments ofPediatrics, Molecular and Human Genetic, and Molecular and Cellular Biology.[5] She is the director of the Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine Center, and is the Chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. She holds the Vivian L. Smith Chair in Regenerative Medicine and is the Co-Leader of the Cancer Cell and Gene Therapy program at the Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.[6] She has received numerous awards for excellence in teaching and research.[7][8]
Goodell has served as chair of the scientific advisory board of theKeystone Symposia, as a former president of theInternational Society for Experimental Hematology, and on the board of theInternational Society for Stem Cell Research. She has also served on several committees, including as the chair of Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine for theAmerican Society of Hematology. She was an Associate Editor forBlood[9] and serves on theeditorial boards ofCell Stem Cell andCancer Cell.
Goodell began her education atWesleyan University and moved on to theImperial College of Science and Technology inLondon,England, for her final years, where she received herB.Sc. inBiochemistry with Honors in 1986. She went on to earn herPh.D. at theUniversity of Cambridge in 1991, working at the famousLaboratory of Molecular Biology. She returned to the United States to completepostdoctoral fellowships inRichard Mulligan’s lab at the prestigiousWhitehead Institute for Biomedical Research atMassachusetts Institute of Technology andHarvard Medical School.[10]
At MIT, she developed a novel method for isolating blood-forming stem cells from mouse bone marrow based on a fortuitous observation that stem cells effluxfluorescentlipophilic dyes. This "side population (SP)" method became widely used to isolate stem cells from a variety of species and adult tissues, including from cancer stem cells.[11]
In 1997, Goodell joined the faculty ofBaylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, in the Departments of Pediatrics and Molecular and Human Genetics. She is a member of the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy[12] and a founding member and director of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine (STaR) Center.[13] She became Chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology in 2019.
She served as a board member of the International Society for Experimental Hematology from 2009 to 2012. She was elected president of the Society in 2013 and served until 2014.[14] Additionally, she was a board member of the International Society for Stem Cell Research from 2004 to 2007.[15]
Goodell became well known for her development of a novel strategy to isolate stem cells from tissues of adult animals. She observed that a small “side population” of stem cells rapidly pumped out a fluorescent dye (Hoechst 33342), and thatflow cytometry could be used to isolate a relatively pure stem cell population.[16] The paper based on this discovery was published in theJournal of Experimental Medicine in 1996 and has been cited nearly 4000 times.[17] This was a breakthrough discovery that has allowed many other scientists to isolate other types of stem cells, and allowed her lab to isolatehematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) with distinct functional characteristics. This led to two new cornerstones of HSC biology: the concepts of HSCheterogeneity and differentiation bias.[18] The strategy has since been applied to many tissues and organisms, including human cancer stem cells andflatworm stem cells.
Goodell’s strategy for HSC purification allowed her lab to study mechanisms that regulate HSC regeneration,quiescence (when the cell is not going through the cell cycle but retains the ability to differentiate[19]),differentiation, and aging. The lab discovered new roles inhematopoiesis of several genes, which led to new knowledge of the role of theimmune response in controlling HSC responses. This was an important conceptual advance in the field that has created increased understanding of how the immune system can activate HSCs, especially usinginterferons. In particular,interferon gamma directly regulates HSC activation and that activation is essential for a successful immune response.[20] This development has created a new sub-field of HSC investigation into the relationships between HSCs,immunity, andinflammation. The paper based on these interferon discoveries was published inNature in 2010 and has been cited over 1000 times.[21]
She has uncovered how theenzyme de novo DNA methyltransferase,DNMT3A — one of the most importanttumor suppressors in the blood — contributes to stem cell self-renewal and differentiation in aging, inflammation, andcancer.[22] Theablation of DNMT3A leads to an increase in HSC self-renewal and a decrease in differentiation.[23] DNMT3A mutations contribute heavily toleukemia development andclonal hematopoiesis, and have come to be understood as the most important tumor suppressor in thehematopoietic system.
These interests led her to a suite of novelCRISPR-mediated techniques to investigate the relationship betweenDNA methylation andgene expression.[24] The Goodell lab investigates the role of DNMT3A in normal andmalignant hematopoiesis, and has discovered a newgenome feature termed “methylation canyons.”[25]
More than 400 of her peer-reviewed primary research papers have been published in journals includingNature[26] andBlood.[27] She was an associate editor ofBlood from 2013 to 2020.[28] Since 2007, she has been a reviewer and served on the editorial board ofCell Stem Cell, and joined the editorial board ofCancer Cell in 2020. In 2024, she publishedan opinion piece inThe Globe and Mail on early cancer detection.
Her current research is focused on the mechanisms that regulate HSCs, and how those regulatory mechanisms go awry in hematologicmalignancies. TheGoodell Laboratory, which has about 15 students andpost-doctoral fellows, studies the effects of stresses, includinginfection,toxicity, and age, on the behavior of HSCs. The lab also looks at stem cell growth control, as well as the regulation of self-renewal and activation.[29]
In 2025, Goodell was elected a member of theNational Academy of Sciences (Section 41) and theAmerican Association of Arts and Sciences. In 2024, Goodell was elected a fellow of theAmerican Association for Cancer Research. In 2023, Goodell received theDonald Metcalf Award from theISEH,[30] cementing her legacy as a distinguished figure in the field. She gave the Tobias Lecture at theInternational Society for Stem Cell Research in 2020. Her remarkable achievements continued with her election in 2019 to theNational Academy of Medicine. In 2012, she was awarded theDamashek Prize from the American Society of Hematology, the most prestigious award from the Society nominated by the members themselves to recognize research that has changed the understanding of hematology.[31] In 2011, she was recognized with theEdith and Peter O’Donnell Award in Medicine. From 2006 to 2011, she received theAmerican Heart Association’s Established Investigator Award. In 2006, she was honored with the Stohlman Scholar Award from theLeukemia and Lymphoma Society. In 2004 and 2010, she received the DeBakey Award for Excellence in Research. Alongside these accomplishments, she has received numerous accolades for her teaching and mentorship. Throughout her career, she has mentored more than 50 doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows, many of whom have gone on to successful careers in academia in addition to mentoring a number of residents, clinical fellows, assistant professors, masters' students, undergraduates, and high school students.
Goodell grew up inBryan, Ohio with sisters Marian (a founding member and CEO of theBurning Man Project[32]), Martha (a management consultant), and Melly (aphysician). She is the daughter of Joe Goodell, former CEO ofAmerican Brass Company, and niece ofGrace Goodell, professor ofInternational Development at TheJohns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She lives inHouston, Texas with her husband and three daughters.
Authority control databases: Academics |
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