Patricia J. Zettler
Education and Experience
- BA, Stanford University
- JD, Stanford University
Biography
Patricia J. Zettler is a nationally-recognized expert on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and food and drug law. She serves as the John W. Bricker Professor of Law and a member of the Drug Enforcement & Policy Center at Moritz College of Law and as a member of the Cancer Control Program at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center. Professor Zettler teaches courses related to administrative law, tort law, FDA law, and public health. She currently serves as Deputy General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and is on leave from the University.
Professor Zettler is a prolific scholar with over 60 articles in scientific journals and traditional law reviews, including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Indiana Law Journal, Boston University Law Review, and NYU Law Review. Her work has covered various topics including stem cell interventions, opioids, cannabis products, tobacco and nicotine products, COVID-19 countermeasures, non-trial access to investigational drugs, and citizen science. She also is a co-author of the 5th edition of Food and Drug Law: Cases and Materials. Zettler’s research has won multiple prizes, including the 2023 Early Career Distinguished Scholar Award at The Ohio State University and the 2015 Health Law Scholar Award from the American Society of Law, Medicine, and Ethics.
Before her academic career, Professor Zettler served as an associate chief counsel in FDA’s Office of the Chief Counsel, where she advised FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services on a wide range of issues. She also has held academic appointments at Stanford Law School and Georgia State University College of Law.
Beyond her scholarship, Professor Zettler has served on the Food and Drug Law Institute’s (FDLI) Board of Directors, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s (NASEM) Health Sciences Policy Board, and the Ohio State Bar Association’s Administrative Agency Law Specialty Board. She also has chaired the International Society of Cell & Gene Therapy’s Committee on the Ethics of Cell and Gene Therapy, and its subcommittee on expanded access to investigational cell and gene interventions.
EpiPen, Patents, and Life and Death, 96 N.Y.U. L. Rev. Online 164 (2021)
Links: SSRN
Drug and Vaccine Development and Access, in Assessing Legal Responses to COVID-19 (S. Burris et al. eds., 2021).
Links: SSRN
The FDA’s Power Over Non-Therapeutic Uses of Drugs and Devices, 78 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 379 (2021)
Self-experimentation, Ethics, and Regulation of Vaccines, 369 Sci. 1570 (2020)
Right to Try Requests and Oncologists’ Gatekeeping Obligations, 38 J. Clinical Oncology 111 (2019)
Regulating Genetic Biohacking, 365 Sci. 34 (2019)
Closing the Regulatory Gap for Synthetic Nicotine Products, 59 B.C. L. Rev. 1933 (2018)
Links: SSRN | OSU Knowledge Bank
Pharmaceutical Federalism, 92 Ind. L.J. 845 (2017)
Links: SSRN