He’s been a professor at Iowa State for one year and he’s already made an impression. So much so that he, Jesse Goff, professor of biomedical sciences, was recently named the first recipient of the Anderson Chair in Veterinary Medicine.

A selection committee chose Goff for the award after considering his credentials, experience and expertise, said Tom Ligouri, communications and events coordinator for the College of Veterinary Medicine.

The award, which was established through an anonymous gift to Iowa State, includes $500,000 in matching funds from the state of Iowa through the Battelle Endowment, Ligouri said.

“I think it’s quite an honor to be picked to fill an endowed chair, and of course there’s a little bit of money that comes with the chair that will help support graduate students and maybe help buy some supplies; let me try some higher risk research that maybe I wouldn’t get funding for otherwise,” Goff said.

Goff previously worked for the National Animal Disease Center in Ames before starting at Iowa State last fall.

His main research interests include milk fever in dairy cows and the impact vitamin D has on human diseases. 

He explained milk fever is a disease in dairy cows in which “their blood calcium falls very, very low and they’re unable to stand up and they actually collapse.” He said the disease is fairly easy to treat, but if a cow has had it, she is fairly susceptible to many other diseases.

“Well, I think everybody likes to hit a home run and we hit a home run, I think, with the milk fever work, but it’s also exciting to be in the next game,” Goff said. “The game’s over, it’s time to move onto the next baseball game and keep playing.”

The next “game” includes working with GlycoMyr Inc. of Ames and Heartland Assays Inc. at the Iowa State Research Park after he was awarded a $90,000 grant to research how vitamin D compounds impact inflammatory bowel disease and cancer in humans.

He said the research is still “pretty preliminary” and he has yet to publish his work.

Donald Draper, university professor of biomedical sciences and the Dr. David R. Trask professor of entrepreneurial studies in the College of Veterinary Medicine, had Goff as a student when Goff was taking classes in graduate school and when he was taking professional-level classes to receive his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree at Iowa State.

“He’s had an extremely successful career and is a leader in the field,” Draper said.

As a student, Draper said Goff was a “very hard-working and a very curious individual.” He said Goff was interested in how things worked and would seek the information to help him learn.

“I think it’s a fundamental trait that he has that has made him successful because he wouldn’t be recognized with this position had he not already demonstrated his ability to be extremely creative and to solve some of the major problems that exist with milk fever and other similar conditions in cattle,” he said.

Goff said his “home run” with the milk fever research and the work with the chemically synthesized vitamin D compounds are a result of work with several collaborators at Iowa State and across the nation.

“I’m not a one-man-show here,” he said. “I definitely have people that help me get where I’m trying to get.”