Personal Statement

I was recruited to Cedars-Sinai to direct the Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Drug Discovery and Development (IBD3) unit for the Inflammatory Bowel and Immunobiology Research Institute. IBD3 is a unique concept by design, in which an industry-caliber target discovery and development unit is integrated with an academic research program to accelerate the pace at which scientific findings are brought to bear on patient care. In this environment, I have access not only to world leaders on the care and management of inflammatory bowel diseases, but also to large cohorts of well-characterized patient material available for validation of potential therapeutic targets to enable successful drug development.

I worked in the biotech/biopharma industry for more than 12 years. My role in industry included directing both discovery research and drug development teams in efforts to develop therapeutics for diseases such as atopic dermatitis, asthma, systemic lupus erythematosus and inflammatory bowel disease. I earned my doctorate in immunology from the University of Queensland, Australia. I am dedicated to implementing a personalized-medicine approach to the discovery, validation, development and repurposing of therapeutics for better and more efficient treatment of immune-mediated diseases.