Sharon Hesterlee

Executive Vice President, Chief Research Officer • Muscular Dystrophy Association USA

Dr. Hesterlee Chief Research Officer of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. She has over 20 years of experience in neuromuscular research in both the nonprofit and industry space. She has served as head of research for Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy, the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation, the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration and the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s MDA Venture Philanthropy. Dr. Hesterlee has also served as project lead for rare disease gene therapy programs at Pfizer, Inc; as Chief Executive Officer of Lion Therapeutics, a special purpose entity of Askbio, Inc.; and as Executive Vice President Portfolio development at Askbio Inc.

She has been involved in numerous efforts to remove barriers to therapy development for rare disease and foster interactions between patient advocacy groups and industry. Dr. Hesterlee has served on the governing board of the Health Research Alliance, the NINDS Council, and the Department of Health and Human Service’s Muscular Dystrophy Coordinating Committee. She currently serves on the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program’s Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Programmatic Review Panel. She received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Arizona in 1999.