Though she deeply enjoyed her time researching at the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, working in the lab, running experiments and generating hypotheses, Theresa Peterson, PhD ’03, found herself drawn to the new challenges and collaborations of the world of industry.

Looking into alternative career paths, she found a way to marry a multitude of interests in research, writing and science communications. “I initially looked at medical writing; I was always good at writing and could meld my love for science with that. That path took me to the pharmaceutical industry.”

In her former position as the senior director for Arena Pharmaceuticals and again in her new role as Clinical Development Director of Gastroenterology at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Dr. Peterson has led teams focused on the clinical development of key compounds. A large part of delivering these transformative treatments hinges on clinical trials, where the diversity of participants and history of discrimination are always at the forefront of her mind.

In 1977, the FDA released a recommendation on “General Considerations for the Clinical Evaluation of Drugs” that forbade the participation of women in Phase I and II clinical trials. While the intention was to protect, the result did far more harm than good, excluding data from half the populace in all clinical research. Dr. Peterson is deeply aware of this history, and as such, she has incorporated diversity, equity and inclusion as an underpinning theme to drive toward a better, more inclusive paradigm that improves patient outcomes.

“It’s always on my radar to increase diversity in clinical trials, because the way drugs work in one person does not necessarily transfer. Pharmacokinetically speaking, drugs are metabolized very differently between different groups. So, increasing inclusion across many boundaries — race, gender and many others — improves the value of a study. Our population is becoming more and more diverse, so exploring a diverse population makes the work more generalizable and makes for a better study.”

Dr. Peterson is deeply committed to diversity across clinical trials to improve health outcomes across the wide spectrum of human experience. Her work on clinical trial inclusivity directly supports the mission of GSK to support the health of all kinds of people, meet diverse patient needs, and ensure that their own teams are inclusive and open to new perspectives. 

Aubrey Penney is academic program coordinator for RFU’s School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. This story originally appeared in the 2022 edition of Hypothesis, the annual SGPS newsletter.