Prof Neal L. Benowitz MD

Professor of Medicine Emeritus (Active)

University of California, San Franciso

Biography

Neal L. Benowitz, MD, is Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Research Program in Clinical Pharmacology, Division of Cardiology, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He was Chief of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at UCSF for 35 years. Dr. Benowitz’s research interests have focused primarily on the human pharmacology and toxicology of nicotine and cannabis. He has published extensively and contributed to several US Surgeon General’s Reports on Smoking and Health in the areas of nicotine addiction and the cardiovascular effects of tobacco use, including cigarettes, water pipe and electronic cigarette use.  Dr Benowitz maintains an active clinical practice in cardiovascular medicine and medical toxicology.

Dr Benowitz was a scientific editor of the 1988 United States Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health: Nicotine Addiction; a scientific editor of the 2001 NCI Monograph 13 Report on Risks Associated with Smoking Cigarettes with Low Machine-Measured Yields of Tar and Nicotine; and served as section editor for the 2010 Surgeon General’s Report on How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease. He, has served as a member of the National Institutes of Health Pharmacology Study Section and the FDA Nonprescription Drug and Tobacco Products Science Advisory Committees. He has served as President of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics and as President of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. Dr Benowitz has received the Ove Ferno, Alton Ochsner, and Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine awards, and the Oscar B. Hunter Memorial Award in Therapeutics for his research on nicotine, tobacco, and health, and was the 2002 UCSF Annual Distinguished Clinical Research Lecturer.