Tom Scanlan, Ph.D.

Dr. Scanlan is a professor of physiology and pharmacology, and director of the Program in Chemical Biology at the OHSU School of Medicine in Portland, Oregon. Prior to joining OHSU, he served as professor of chemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry and cellular and molecular pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco from 1991 to 2006. Dr. Scanlan’s research focuses on the chemistry, physiology and medicine of thyroid hormone action. He is an internationally recognized leader in the field of thyroid endocrinology and the creation of novel thyroid hormone analogs and testing them in disease models is a central component of his research. Dr. Scanlan’s laboratory discovered and characterized thyromimetic agonists such as sobetirome, thyroid hormone antagonists, and a novel class of biogenic amine thyroid hormone metabolites. Dr. Scanlan’s laboratory recently devised a prodrug strategy for targeting thyromimetics to the central nervous system for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. He was a founder of Serra Pharmaceuticals, a nuclear receptor therapeutics company acquired by Karo Bio, AB. He was also a founder of the thyromimetic therapeutics companies EndoChem and NeuroVia, focused on developing thyromimetic treatments for metabolic disease and an inborn error of metabolism called X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy. Dr. Scanlan has authored more than 180 scientific publications and is an inventor on 17 issued patents. Dr. Scanlan holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University and a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Oregon.