PART’s Mark Dertzbaugh Reflects on 30+ Years of Progress at MRDC

Story by Paul Lagasse

Medical Research and Development Command

FORT DETRICK, Md. – It’s no surprise that Dr. Mark Dertzbaugh, Principal Assistant for Research and Technology at Medical Research and Development Command, has seen many changes during his 33 years at MRDC. That’s because he was responsible for overseeing many of them himself. As he prepares for retirement this month, Dertzbaugh can look back with pride on his many successes in helping MRDC improve its robustness and resiliency to weather those changes over the past decade – first at the Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and then at PART.

Like many of his contemporaries, watching the Apollo lunar landings on television as a child sparked Dertzbaugh’s interest in science. In high school he gravitated toward biology, and during his sophomore year in college at James Madison University a mentor steered him toward a unique opportunity that helped chart his career path.

“I took a course in medical microbiology taught by a professor from Wake Forest University Medical School, and that hooked me,” recalls Dertzbaugh. “She was a good lecturer and told interesting stories that excited me. I guess she saw something in me, because she not only invited me to assist her research, but she also cold-called the National Cancer Institute at Fort Detrick to find a place for me to do a summer internship.”

As a Frederick County native – his family can trace their roots in the area back to 1745 – returning home from Harrisonburg, Virginia, was no hardship. The timing of his arrival was fortuitous; he became involved in then-new research into using natural killer cells to treat tumor metastases. That work became the subject of his undergraduate honors thesis.

“I felt like I was contributing to really cutting-edge cool stuff, and that just excited me even more,” he says.

Dertzbaugh attended the Medical College of Virginia – now Virginia Commonwealth University – where he studied genetically engineered vaccines, earning his Ph.D. in 1989. That was followed by a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Gastroenterology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham researching the mechanism of action of cholera toxin as an adjuvant for mucosal vaccines.

“I was reading an issue of Science, and in the back was an advertisement for a mucosal immunologist at RIID,” recalls Dertzbaugh. “It caught my attention for two reasons. One, there weren’t that many people looking for mucosal Immunologists back then, and two, it was near my hometown!”

At RIID, Dertzbaugh continued his research into mucosal vaccines for several years until DOD funding cuts necessitated closing the mucosal immunology department. Fortunately, he was able to transition to the newly formed Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program – the predecessor of today’s Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense – where he provided technical and managerial oversight of DOD contracts for developing, testing and evaluating a wide range of vaccines, including oversight of the manufacture of the Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed to meet the DOD’s requirement for mandatory anthrax vaccinations for all active-duty Service Members.

In early 1998, Dertzbaugh was named chief of research programs at RIID. It was there that his career began to pivot away from research and turn decisively toward long-range strategic planning. In addition to planning and managing RIID’s $70 million research program, he also championed an organizational transformation that restructured the Institute and redefined its strategy.

“We began to focus more on our deliverables because that was what our funding sponsors were expecting from us,” says Dertzbaugh. “It required a cultural shift throughout the organization. We needed to think of ourselves less like an academic institution and more like a corporate research and development organization, focused on producing new and better products that our customers were asking for.”

Dertzbaugh’s hands-on experience at RIID was supplemented by executive education courses he attended at the MIT Sloan School of Management. The courses, he says, opened his eyes to state-of-the-art concepts in the management of technical programs and connected him to a broad network of experts whose experience he could draw on in developing and implementing new ideas.

All of these experiences were to come in handy in Dertzbaugh’s next assignment, as the Civilian Deputy to the PART. For two years, Dertzbaugh oversaw MRDC’s Army medical research portfolio. He also led MRDC’s efforts to develop a strategic plan for R&D and systematize its technical workforce competencies. This helped smooth MRDC’s transition to Army Futures Command, which had an organizational culture focused on prioritizing investments to address capability gaps.

“We developed strategic plans that mapped our research efforts to high priority medical capability gaps identified by the Army and determined the investment necessary to be able to get after those objectives,” says Dertzbaugh. “We also implemented a process called technology landscape mapping, which involves systematically scouting for technologies that might fit specific capabilities and then sitting down with stakeholders and deciding where we should place our bets.”

In 2019, Dertzbaugh was promoted to the PART. As the technical director and chief scientist for MRDC’s $400 million biomedical research portfolio, Dertzbaugh provided executive oversight and management of MRDC’s investment strategy to ensure that research programs are aligned with current and future DOD and Defense Health Agency requirements. In addition to managing MRDC’s program areas in military infectious disease, military operational medicine, combat casualty care, medical simulation and information sciences and radiation health effects, PART also oversees the Chemical Biological Radiation and Nuclear Defense Research Coordinating Office, the DOD Blast Injury Research Coordinating Office and the Joint Trauma Analysis and Prevention of Injury in Combat Office.

In addition, Dertzbaugh had to contend with a perfect storm of unexpected changes that required adroit and creative responses, including the 2017 spending reviews by Army leadership that transferred a significant amount of MRDC’s funding to other Army programs and two major organizational transitions – first to AFC, and then to DHA.

Dr. Jamie Blow, PART’s executive officer during Dertzbaugh’s tenure, credits Dertzbaugh’s skill as a consensus builder for helping PART – and, by extension, MRDC – weather the many storms of the past five years.

“He is a process and data scientist, so he knows how to implement processes to follow and then collect data metrics to track how well those processes work,” says Blow. “I would say Dr. Dertzbaugh’s most notable accomplishments during his time as the PART would be working with the requirements generators to more clearly define and prioritize medical gaps and develop strategic plans to develop knowledge and products to close those gaps and also putting process in place for the program area directorates to conduct market research to identify and leverage technologies.”

Maj. Gen. Anthony McQueen, MRDC’s commanding general from 2021–2023, agrees. McQueen says he relied on Dertzbaugh’s breadth of knowledge about the command to make informed decisions about mission priorities and resource allocations.

“Mark’s knowledge was such that no question, whatever lab it was from, ever really stumped him,” recalls McQueen. “He knew exactly what was going on, and if he didn’t, he knew exactly how to get the answer. Because he had come up through the organization, now that he was in a leadership position he wanted to ensure we were doing everything we could to keep the organization moving in a positive direction.”

“Mark will be a fixture for years to come at MRDC, and he certainly has left his mark in a positive way to improve the organization,” says McQueen. “I think MRDC has certainly benefited from having him on the team for so many years there. And with him staying in Frederick area, I’m sure he’ll drop in for a visit every now and then.”

Looking back on his tenure as PART, Dertzbaugh says that he hopes the concepts and initiatives that he launched and oversaw will continue to be implemented in the DHA’s new research and engineering enterprise as it matures.

“The good news is, we have a critical mass of people who are moving over to DHA R&E who I think will champion that approach and continue these concepts on that side of the house,” says Dertzbaugh. “I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next.”

That being said, in retirement Dertzbaugh also plans to spend more time enjoying the outdoors and working on home improvement projects that, until now, have had to wait for the weekends.

“I’m hoping to do some more kayaking, fishing and camping,” Says Dertzbaugh. “I’m just looking forward to not having to get up quite as early in the morning to do them!”