Joel Goodman was born in New York City in 1948 but grew up in Southern California. He attended John Marshall High School in Los Angeles. His undergraduate years were spent at the University of California at San Diego, where he majored in Biology and minored in Music. After graduating in 1971, Goodman worked as a research technician at Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles and also pursued his interest as a classical pianist, giving several recitals in the Los Angeles area. In 1975 Goodman began his doctoral studies in Pharmacology in the laboratory of Paul Hochstein. The interest of the laboratory was oxygen metabolism, and Goodmans dissertation developed his observation in the laboratory that the anthracycline cancer drugs undergo redox cycling causing tissue toxicity. After graduating in 1980 he performed his postdoctoral training in William Wickners laboratory at UCLA, where he studied protein translocation across membranes. Goodmans contributions include cloning the bacterial leader peptidase and establishing an in vitro system to study translocation of a model viral protein.
In 1982 Goodman joined the pharmacology faculty of UT Southwestern, where he has remained, currently at the rank of professor. Goodmans research has focused on the biogenesis of peroxisomes, an essential organelle responsible for several anabolic and catabolic pathways, many of which center around lipid metabolism. The lack of functioning peroxisomes leads to severe illness and death in newborns. Goodman is largely responsible for establishing yeast as a model system for molecular and biochemical approaches to study peroxisomal assembly. He established fractionation protocols to obtain purified peroxisomes and radioactive pulse-chase experiments to follow the assembly and fate of newly synthesized peroxisomal proteins. He was the first to show an energy requirement for peroxisomal import and he discovered a transient membrane complex in which translocating proteins participate. He has biochemically characterized peroxisomes from both methylotrophic yeasts (which contain huge peroxisomes) and bakers yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). Goodmans laboratory found that folded proteins and oligomers are the normal substrates for peroxisomal import, not unfolded proteins as is the case for other organelles. A longstanding interest in the lab is the targeting and assembly of membrane proteins into peroxisomes. Goodmans group was the first to elucidate a targeting signal for these proteins and is presently pursuing the hypothesis that so-called redundant signals actually target to subclasses of peroxisomes.
In other recent work Goodman has collaborated with Joseph Albanesi, also at U.T. Southwestern, to study phosphatidylinositol kinases in yeast and other microorganisms.
Besides his research interests, Goodman has devoted considerable time to teaching in the medical and graduate schools. Until 2001 he was active in organizing, administering, and teaching in the graduate school first year core curriculum, where he was fall semester course director. Beginning in 2000 Goodman switched his teaching focus to the medical school and is currently director of the sophomore medical pharmacology course. He is actively working with other course directors to provide a more integrated medical school curriculum in the MSII year, scheduled to be actualized in the fall of 2004.
Outside of UT Southwestern, Goodman has maintained his interest in classical piano. He was selected to participate in the Second International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in Ft. Worth in 2000. He currently plays monthly in the Dallas-Fort Worth Amateur Piano Club and gives various performances on and off campus. Since 1999 he has studied piano performance with Adam Wodnicki, professor of music at the University of North Texas.
