Affiliation: NIH/NCATS

Dr. Ottinger received her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Minnesota and completed her postdoctoral training at the Joslin Diabetes Center of Harvard Medical School. Before joining NCATS in 2010, she was in the Vaccine Development Department at Merck Research Laboratories. At NCATS, she was Deputy Director for Programs & and Head of Project Management in the Therapeutic Development Branch (TDB), and her team managed a portfolio of IND-enabling projects focusing on rare and neglected diseases. In 2022, Dr. Ottinger became the Acting Director of TDB in the Division of Preclinical Innovation.  

Over the past 13 years, she has led multiple collaborative projects involving public-private partnerships to advance small molecules and biotherapeutics through pre-clinical and early clinical development, contributing to six INDs and one drug approval. Her research interests are developing tools and platforms to increase the efficiency of therapeutic development processes.