Jane Larkindale, DPhil

Jane Larkindale, DPhil, is the Executive Director for both the Duchenne Regulatory Sciences Consortium (D-RSC) and the Rare Disease Cures Accelerator-Data and Analytics Platform (RDCA-DAP) at the Critical Path Institute in Tucson, Arizona. Larkindale was a key leader in launching RDCA-DAP in September 2019. She launched D-RSC in 2005 and has been its leader since inception. She is a molecular biologist by training, having completed her D.Phil. (Ph.D.) in the department of plant sciences at Oxford University in 2001, which she attended on a Rhodes Scholarship. In the laboratory, she did research in areas as diverse as molecular biology, biochemistry, genomics, plant science, medical physics, marine biology, and industrial chemistry. In the course of this research, she published numerous original research papers and review articles in several disciplines. Her experience in drug development and neuromuscular diseases started at the Muscular Dystrophy Association, an international non-profit covering over forty neuromuscular diseases, where she ended as Vice President for Research. Dr. Larkindale was instrumental in the start-up of MDA Venture Philanthropy (MDA’s drug development arm), which invested in 21 drug development projects, of which 10 entered clinical trials, and several of which have been licensed by large pharmaceutical companies. After leaving MDA, Dr. Larkindale started a consulting company in the area of drug development for rare neuromuscular diseases and worked for the Friedreich’s Ataxia Research Alliance, developing biomarker and patient reported outcomes programs and working on a new patient registry.