David Strom, Ph.D., was awarded Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology in March 2025 at the Marian University Tom and Julie Wood College of Osteopathic Medicine. Dr. Strom's primary areas of teaching interest are pharmacology, physiology, and cancer biology.
Dr. Strom earned his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry, with a minor in chemistry, from the University of Iowa. He received his Ph.D. in Physiology and Pharmacology from the University of California, San Diego. He performed his postdoctoral work at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, in the Department of Tumor Cell Biology. He held a non-tenure track faculty position at Vanderbilt University in the Cancer Center.
Dr. Strom’s first tenure-track faculty position was at the University of South Carolina-Aiken, where he taught comparative physiology, biochemistry, and nursing physiology. His first teaching at an osteopathic medical school was at Des Moines University in Des Moines, Iowa. He was a faculty member in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology and taught medical pharmacology, introduction to physiology, and hematology/oncology courses.
Dr. Strom is active with the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners (NBOME), where he serves as an item writer and item reviewer. He served as Chair of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). In addition, Dr. Strom was an associate dean of research and director of the master's in biomedical sciences program at Des Moines University.
Dr. Strom undertakes research in the area of cancer biology. In particular, his research focuses on identifying biomarkers specific to numerous cancers and understanding how a specific cancer treatment known as HIPEC (Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy) works at a cellular level.
