DOUG KORNBRUST

Advisor, Safety & Toxicology

Doug Kornbrust PhD DABT (1951-2023) was an independent consultant and President of Preclinsight.  He had a PhD in Toxicology from the University of Rochester, and was a post-doc at the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology.  After senior appointments at Research Triangle Institute and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina, Dr Kornbrust joined the Safety Assessment Group at Merck Research Labs.  In 1988 he was appointed Associate Director in the Drug Safety Group at Rhone-Poulenc Rorer (now Sanofi), in 1991 he became Director of Toxicology for Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp. in San Diego, then until 1994 he was Director of the Toxicology and the Pharmacokinetics & Metabolism departments at Isis Pharmaceuticals (now the leading oligonucleotide medicines company Ionis).

Doug moved to Sierra Biomedical (now Charles River Laboratories) where he was SVP and Scientific Director.  In 2001, Doug founded Preclinsight, moved to part-time as senior scientific advisor at Sierra/CRL, and since 2004 was a full-time independent consultant with over 200 pharmaceutical companies.

Doug assisted RAGE in the planning and management of the non-clinical and regulatory aspects of our drug development programs.  His main area of expertise was oligonucleotide-based therapeutics.  Doug estimated he had been involved in over 300 programs with oligonucleotides and authored numerous publications on oligonucleotide toxicity.

Drawing on his broad experience in drug safety and toxicology and his expertise in oligonucleotide therapeutics, Doug laid out many of the initial assumptions and strategies for the inhalational toxicology programme on our lead drug, RBr042.  His generous mentoring and supportive approach was highly influential and tremendously appreciated.  Knowing and working with Doug was a pleasure and an honour.