President Barrack Obama intends to name New York City’s former health commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, and Baltimore health commissioner Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein as chiefs of the US Food and Drug Administration, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The agency has struggled with a series of drug safety problems over the past several years, letting Americans down so many times and exposing them to serious side effects of the products they regulated. Also American consumers have struggled with serious outbreaks of salmonella and other infectious diseases, the most recent one being the salmonella outbreak linked to peanut products that led to nine deaths and sickened more than 660 people. It happened just one year after the blood thinner heparin was recalled because it contained a deadly ingredient traced to China.

Dr. Hamburg, 53, with double degrees from Harvard and a successful run as New York City's youngest health commissioner under her belt, would be the latest in a string of high-achievers to join the Obama administration, if confirmed by the Senate.

Dr. Sharfstein has been involved in health policy since his training at Harvard Medical School. He served as health policy adviser to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., a congressional health leader, before becoming Baltimore’s health chief in 2005.

“The FDA is a public health agency and to have two public health leaders at the helm is a clear signal of the right direction for the agency,” said Dr. Ray Woosley, president of the Critical Path Institute, an Arizona-based nonprofit organization created by the FDA and the University of Arizona. The group works to improve the approval process for products such as drugs.