Sarah Huntwork-Rodriguez, PhD, is a Senior Scientist, Biomarker Group Leader at Denali Therapeutics in South San Francisco, California. In this role, she leads the development and implementation of target engagement and disease-associated pathway biomarker assays for Denali's LRRK2 inhibitor program for Parkinson's disease. As part of this effort, she has worked extensively with The Michael J. Fox Foundation to measure Parkinson’s disease biomarkers in the LRRK2 Cohort Consortium, the 24 hour Biofluid Study, the LRRK2 Detection Consortium and the LRRK2 Biobanking Initiative.
During her academic career, she focused on cellular and molecular neuroscience. A graduate of Stanford University, she obtained her PhD in Neurobiology from the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During her postdoctoral work in the laboratories of Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Joseph Lewcock at Genentech in South San Francisco, California, she studied mechanisms of the neuronal stress response in triggering cell death following neuronal insults.