David Pearce is President of Innovation, Research, & World Clinic for Sanford Health. He completed his undergraduate Bachelor of Science Degree with honors in biological sciences at Wolverhampton Polytechnic in 1986. He gained his PhD in 1990 at the University of Bath, UK, and did postdoctoral training at the University of Rochester, U.S., and Oxford University, UK. As President of Innovation, Research, & World Clinic at Sanford, Dr. Pearce oversees the development of research programs, including more than 450 researchers, eight research centers and more than 300 ongoing clinical trials. A particular focus is developing clinical trials and prevention programs for conditions such as Type 1 Diabetes. Dr. Pearce heads the leading lab in Juvenile Batten disease research. He has been researching Juvenile Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis (Batten disease) since 1997. His research has led to the first clinical trial for Juvenile Batten disease. He has published over 100 research papers on Batten disease. He also oversees a national registry for rare diseases known as the Coordination of Rare Diseases at Sanford (CoRDS). He has served on numerous NIH review committees, has organized rare disease workshops for the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) arm of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is currently the vice chair of the consortium assembly for the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC).