Patricia J. Zettler, B.A., J.D.

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, as Acting Academic Director of the Drug Enforcement & Policy Center at Moritz College of Law (spring 2025), 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.

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.

From November 2023 to January 2025, Professor Zettler was on leave from the University while she served as Deputy General Counsel to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), covering the FDA portfolio. In that role, she helped to advance and implement key FDA regulations and policies, worked with the Department of Justice on litigation involving FDA, and advised HHS, FDA, and others across the federal government on a wide range of issues. Before her academic career, Professor Zettler served as an associate chief counsel in FDA’s Office of the Chief Counsel. She also has held academic appointments at Stanford Law School and Georgia State University College of Law.

Additionally, 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.

Martin Fried, Shivam Joshi, Nicole Thomas, Nathan Richards, Larisa Svirsky, Patricia J. Zettler & Dana Howard, Treatment Agreements Do Not Change Clinicians’ Permissive Attitudes of Cannabis Use Among Patients on Long-term Opioid Therapy, J. Gen. Internal Medicine. 1 (Nov. 2024) (online first).

Sven Eric Jordt, Sairam V. Jabba, Patricia J. Zettler & Micah L. Berman, Spree Bar, a Vaping System Delivering a Synthetic Nicotine Analogue, Marketed in the United States as “PMTA Exempt”, Tobacco Control (March 2024) (online first).

Megan E. Roberts, Joanne G. Patterson, Brittney L. Keller-Hamilton, Amy K. Ferketich, Jill M. Singer & Patricia J. Zettler, JUUL and its ‘Action Network’ Attempt to Prevent a Local Flavour Ban, 33 Tobacco Control e138 (2024)

Larisa Svirsky, Dana Howard, Martin Fried, Nathan Richards, Nicole Thomas & Patricia J. Zettler, The Legal Landscape for Opioid Treatment Agreements, 102 The Milbank Q. 632 (2024)

Robert E. Hynds, Chelsea M. Magin, Laertis Ikonomou, Yael Aschner, Michael F. Beers, Janette K. Burgess, Rebecca L. Heise, Patrick S. Hume, Anna D. Krasnodembskaya, Shirley H.J. Mei, Alexander V. Misharin, Jin-Ah Park, Susan D.Reynolds, Daniel Tschumperlin, Alicia E. Tanneberger, Sriram Vaidyanathan, Christopher M. Waters, Patricia J. Zettler et al., Stem Cells, Cell Therapies, and Bioengineering in Lung Biology and Diseases 2023, 327 Am. J. Physiology - Lung Cellular & Molecular Physiology L327 (2024) (summary of presentations at the 2023 Stem Cells, Cell Therapies, and Bioengineering in Lung Biology and Diseases Conference).

Rachel E. Sachs, W. Nicholson Price & Patricia J. Zettler, Rethinking Innovation at FDA, 104 B.U. L. Rev. 513 (2024)

Patricia J. Zettler et al., An International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy Working Group Short Report on the Future of Expanded Access to Unapproved Cell and Gene Therapies, 25 Cytotherapy 712 (2023)

Brittney Keller-Hamilton, Hayley Curran, Elise M. Stevens, Patricia J. Zettler, Darren Mays & Amy K. Ferketich, Effects of “Tobacco Free” Language in Warning Labels on Perceptions of Electronic Cigarettes and Nicotine Pouches among Young Adult Men: A Randomized Trial, 58 Substance Use & Misuse 1302 (2023)

Lewis Grossman, Patricia J. Zettler, Eli Y. Adashi & I. Glenn Cohen, The Mifepristone Litigation: Untangling the Implications of the Fifth Circuit’s Decision for Abortion Access and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 176 Ann. Internal Med. 1666 (2023)

Laertis Ikonomou, Natividad Cuende, Miguel Forte, Bambi Grilley, Aaron D. Levine, Megan Munsie, John E.J. Rasko, Leigh Turner, Hamid R. Bidkhori, Rachele Ciccocioppo, Felix Grignon, Alok Srivastava, Daniel J. Weiss, Patricia J. Zettler et al., Key Considerations to Support Evidence-Based Cell and Gene Therapies and Oppose Marketing of Unproven Products, 25 Cytotherapy 920 (2023)

View More Publications