Jeffry B. Lansman, Ph.D.
Expert Witness — Multi-Level Pharmacology and Scientific Causation Analysis

Professor Emeritus of Cellular & Molecular Pharmacology University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine

I provide expert opinions in civil litigation and class action matters involving pharmaceutical injury and death. The differentiator I offer counsel is multi-level expertise: I work fluently from molecule to cell to tissue to organ systems to whole patient — and I assemble those levels into a single, defensible scientific causation analysis that satisfies Rule 702 and Daubert.

Most pharmacology experts hold one specialty. Drug-injury cases are rarely confined to one specialty. The cases that move today - multi-organ adverse events and polypharmacy in medically complex patients - sit at the intersection of multiple disciplines. That intersection is where I work.

Drug injury and drug-related death are rarely single events. They are sequences. A pharmacological insult at the molecular level produces a cellular consequence, which produces a tissue-level disturbance, which produces an organ-system effect and which is then either intercepted by clinical recognition and proper response or compounded by the failure of an appropriate response.

The most useful analogy for a jury is the airline-disaster investigation: an NTSB accident report almost never identifies a single failure. It reconstructs a chain of five to ten contributing events, each documented, each defensible, the whole sequence coherent. Fatal drug events have the same structure, and they call for the same kind of analysis. An expert opinion that stops at "the drug caused this" misses most of what actually injured the patient and is increasingly vulnerable to challenge under the 2023 amendment to Rule 702, which requires reliability at every step of the reasoning, not just at the conclusion.

That is the kind of analysis I produce: a transparent, ordered scientific reconstruction of the full chain of events connecting drug to harm.

Why my training fits this work:
• Ph.D. in Physiology and Biophysics, UCLA (1982) — human physiology at all levels.
• Postdoctoral training at UCLA (NIMH), Yale School of Medicine (NIH), and the Physiological Laboratory at the University of Cambridge (NATO–NSF).
• UCSF faculty since 1987 in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, with appointments in the Neuroscience Graduate Program and the Cardiovascular Research Institute.
• Course director and lecturer in autonomic and cardiovascular pharmacology, neuropharmacology, immuno- and endocrine pharmacology, and cellular and molecular neuroscience.
• Seven-time UCSF Teacher of the Year. Two-time AACP Teacher of the Year. Three decades of explaining molecular mechanism in plain language — the same skill that translates to depositions and juries.

This is the training profile of someone who studies how the parts of a living body work together. That is the training drug-injury litigation actually requires.

Areas of competence
Pharmacology and pharmacokinetics · Cardiovascular and renal pharmacology · Neuropharmacology and drugs of abuse ·
Multi-organ system interactions and cross-system drug effects ·
Polypharmacy and drug–drug interactions · Bradford Hill and differential etiology

Litigation experience:

Civil litigation and class action engagements in pharmaceutical product liability, drug-induced injury, and drug-related death. Engaged by both plaintiff and defense counsel. Expert reports, depositions, and trial testimony. National availability.

Initial consultations are complimentary. A 30-minute scoping call carries no fee and resolves whether the engagement is a fit.

Direct line: 415-378-7105
Email: jeff.lansman@ucsf.edu
Profile: amp.profiles.ucsf.edu/jeff.lansman