Manley Joins Institute For Innovative Therapeutics

Dr. Heather Manley has been appointed as the new director for operations and business development at the Institute for Innovative Therapeutics, the unified biomedical enterprise representing the partnership between The Texas A&M University System’s multiple state-of-the-art research facilities and pioneering investigators.

Manley comes to the IIT from the United States Defense Department’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, where she was a member of the senior leadership team for the Transformational Medical Technologies program. As TMT’s director of scientific outreach and communications, contracting officer’s representative and program manager, she was integrally involved in TMT’s collaborative research projects with both industry and academia. Through these the program developed, implemented and integrated state-of-the-art medical capabilities to improve national defense preparedness against biological threats and emerging infectious diseases.

At the IIT, Manley will lead strategic initiatives and partnerships to advance the Institute’s mission to improve global health through biomedical research, development and commercialization. Faculty at each of the IIT facilities have recently received national recognition and competitive funding for their research to advance protection against infectious diseases, traumatic blood loss and biothreat agents.

“Dr. Manley’s wealth of knowledge and experience fits perfectly with our commitment to improving global health and ensuring national biosecurity through basic and translational research that yields real products for people in need,” said Dr. Brett Giroir, vice chancellor for research for the Texas A&M System and executive director of the IIT. “Heather will be integral to expanding our efforts to develop strategic partnerships and sponsored research opportunities. She’ll also coordinate new major projects among diverse stakeholders within the academic and private communities.”

Prior to her tenure at TMT, Manley provided technical, scientific and programmatic support to both the Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Programs (Chemical and Biological Defense), and to the Defense Sciences Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. She began her Department of Defense career through a National Academies of Science post-doctoral fellowship with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense, where she was an integral team member of the neurotoxicology branch botulinum neurotoxin research group, working on medical countermeasures and intracellular trafficking.

She received her Ph.D. in biomedical research – molecular neuroscience in the laboratory of Dr. Vanda Lennon at the Mayo Graduate School, College of Medicine in Rochester, Minn. During this time she also worked as a clinical laboratory technologist at the Mayo Clinic’s Neuroimmunology Laboratory on paraneoplastic autoimmune disorder diagnostics. A graduate of Creighton University, she also holds a B.A. in psychology and biology.