Elaine Pirie, PhD

Assistant Director, Antisense Drug Discovery at Ionis Pharmaceuticals

Elaine is an Assistant Director at Ionis Pharmaceuticals, where her research is focused on the uptake of antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) into the beta cell for the treatment of diabetes. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her PhD from the University of California San Diego. Elaine then joined Ionis Pharmaceuticals as a postdoctoral fellow, using genetic models to understand ASO uptake and trafficking in the liver. She later began working on using GLP-1 conjugated ASOs to deliver ASO to the beta cell of the pancreas. Her research areas focus on evaluating and improving GLP-1 conjugated ASO uptake and identifying novel targets for diabetes.