Biography

Sarah Dunsmore, Ph.D., is a program director in the Office of Translational Medicine (OTM), where she engages with diverse partners and communities, including patient groups, academia, industry, foundations, and NIH institutes and centers, as well as other government agencies. Dunsmore brings expertise in clinical trial operations, clinical trial oversight, and stakeholder and patient engagement to NCATS and NIH programs. Before joining OTM in June 2023, she served as a program director for the Trial Innovation Network, a collaborative initiative within the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program. She also has served as a project manager for several NCATS-managed COVID-19 clinical trials: CONTAIN COVID-19, PassItOn and ACTIV-6.

Prior to joining NCATS in September 2020, Dunsmore was a program director for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, where she managed research and training grants in the areas of sepsis, innate immunity and inflammation, and molecular pharmacology.

Dunsmore received a B.S. in molecular biology and mathematics from Vanderbilt University and a Ph.D. in physiology from Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine. She completed postdoctoral research training at Washington University in St. Louis and held academic positions at University College London and Brigham and Women’s Hospital before joining NIH in 2006.

Research Topics

Dunsmore’s scientific expertise includes lung biology, signal transduction pathways, molecular and cellular mediators of innate immunity and inflammation, and critical illness and injury. She has specific expertise in COVID-19 and sepsis clinical trials and is interested in innovative clinical trial design and stakeholder and patient-partner engagement.

I Am Translational Science Feature

Watch this video (video length: 4:05) to learn more about Dunsmore’s role in the ACTIV-6 clinical trial.

Watch the rest of the I Am Translational Science video series.