Thomas J. Goodwin MA, PhD

Dr. Thomas J. Goodwin is the Manager of the Disease Modeling and Tissue Analogues Laboratory at the NASA Johnson Space Center and the Lead Scientist for the Oxidative Stress and Damage research discipline. He holds adjunct positions at the University of Texas Medical School, Galveston Texas, Dept. of Surgery, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, the University of Houston, Dept. of Health and Human Performance, and is an Adjunct Scientist at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute and the Southwest National Primate Research Center which is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. He has authored or co-authored over 40 peer-review articles, and two book chapters on three-dimensional biology have been awarded 20 US patents and earned over 60 scientific-technical and performance awards while at NASA.

Dr. Goodwin’s research focuses on cell physiology and organ tissue bioengineering, the development of ex vivo physiological 3D systems, and the three-dimensional biology of human and animal cells. Complex recapitulated tissues may serve as surrogates for studies of tumor physiology, viral, and bacterial infectivity, and genomic responses to a myriad of cellular conditions including genomic modulation and regulation due to chemical, physical, and environmental stimuli such as may be seen on the Earth and in the microgravity environment and as a platform to study man-machine interfaces. Recent papers include the co-authorship of Personalized Medicine in Human Space Flight: Using Omics-Based Analyses to Develop Individualized Countermeasures that Enhance Astronaut Safety and Performance, published in the journal Metabolomics in 2013, and Three-Dimensional Normal Human Neural Progenitor Tissue-Like Assemblies: A Model of Persistent Varicella-Zoster Virus Infection”, PLoS Pathogens 2013.