David A. Pearce, PhD

David Pearce is president of Innovation and Research for Sanford Health. He completed his Bachelor of Science with honors in biological sciences at Wolverhampton Polytechnic in 1986.  He gained his doctorate in 1990 at the University of Bath, U.K., and did postdoctoral training at the University of Rochester, U.S., and Oxford University, U.K.

Dr. Pearce has been researching neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (Batten disease) since 1997.  His research has led to the first clinical trial for Juvenile Batten disease.  He has published over 100 research papers on Batten disease. He also oversees a national registry for rare diseases known as the Coordination of Rare Diseases at Sanford (CoRDS).  He has served on numerous National Institutes of Health (NIH) review committees, has organized rare disease workshops for the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) arm of the NIH and is currently the vice chair of the consortium assembly for the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC).

In his role as president of Innovation and Research at Sanford he is responsible for overseeing the development of research programs across Sanford’s nine-state footprint, including more than 450 researchers, eight research centers and more than 300 ongoing clinical trials.  He is also responsible for commercialization of select research strategies, as well as integrating Sanford Research operations into Sanford Health International Clinics. Driven by Dr. Pearce’s passion for developing patient-centered, impactful research programs, Sanford Research is uniquely positioned to provide translational research that can bring important discoveries from bench to bedside.