Dr. J. Max Goodson was born in Lubbock, Texas and raised on a Texas ranch. He received a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Texas Tech University (1962), a dental degree (D.D.S.) from the University of Texas Dental Branch, and a master?s degree in dental research and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Rochester (1970).

He taught Pharmacology for seven years at the University of California, San Francisco, where he became a full professor. Here, he identified PGE2 as a component of periodontal disease and elucidated the danger in treatment of pedodontics patients with narcotics (especially alphaprodine) combined with local anesthetics.

In 1976, he joined the faculty of The Forsyth Institute in Boston to work with Sigmund Socransky in the Periodontal Research Center and received an appointment in the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. In this environment, he published evidence for an episodic periodontal disease hypothesis and developed the first FDA-approved local drug delivery system for periodontal disease therapy (Actisite®).

In a five-year clinical study (2012-2017) of adolescent obesity and diabetes of Kuwaiti children (n=8,317), he identified elevated salivary levels in obese children of 1-methyl-2 pyridone-5 carboxamide (2PY), a product associated with low-level consumption of uranium suggesting that obesity in Kuwait could be the result of military contamination occurring during the Gulf War. In that study of adolescent obesity in children with and without gingivitis, he reported data suggesting that salivary levels of the amino acid hydroxyproline, an effect commonly associated with collagen destruction, suggests that obesity and gingivitis may interact with each other. He is now Senior Member of the Staff Emeritus of The Forsyth Institute and Associate Clinical Professor at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine.