Deborah Phippard , PhD

Deborah Phippard, PhD joined the ITN in September 2009 as the Executive Director of the Tolerance Assay & Data Analysis (TADA) group.  TADA brings together key opinion leaders and cutting edge technologies to provide reliable, informative and well controlled (centralized) analyses of patient samples. With the aim of gaining a better understanding of immune cell function in disease processes and during therapeutic intervention. A further goal of the group is to identify and validate surrogate markers for tolerance, disease severity and drug response.

Prior to joining the ITN, Deborah spent close to 20 years working in the Pharmaceutical industry mostly recently at Roche in Palo Alto where she led a group engaged in novel target discovery for inflammatory diseases such as asthma and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as well as pharmacodynamic (PD) biomarkers. Research activities included development of a PD assay in support of a novel agent for the treatment of RA and managing its transition to a clinical CRO to support first-in-man studies. As well as developing multiple in vitro assays of innate and adaptive immunity to assess the potential of novel drugs to modulate the immune system. Novel drug discovery included; leading a new drug discovery project targeting a protein kinase key regulator of T cell and myeloid function for the treatment of asthma and co-leading a novel drug discovery project for RA targeting a purinergic receptor. Deborah also has a keen interest in new technologies and whilst at Roche introduced RNA interference techniques to her department.

Deborah has also worked in new target validation for inflammatory diseases at Searle/Pharmacia (St. Louis) as well as in the Diagnostics Division of The Wellcome Foundation, UK (GlaxoSmithKline) and Research at Pfizer, UK.

Deborah has a keen interest in translational biology and believes that “the bedside should be the bench”.