Meet the Panelist: Leigh Peterson, Ph.D.
Leigh Peterson serves as Executive Vice President of Product Development and Xenotransplantation at United Therapeutics, making her one of the most consequential women working at the frontier of organ science today. She holds a Ph.D. and has led the company's xenotransplantation program through a series of historic milestones, operating at the intersection of genetic engineering, regulatory science, and patient advocacy.
Peterson is the lead author of the first comprehensive review publication on xenotransplantation, co-authored with a global team of scientists across multiple institutions. Her voice has been central to every major announcement in the program. Speaking at the world's first successful xenothymokidney transplant in 2024, Peterson described the achievement as building on two decades of collaborative knowledge, demonstrating the potential of xeno organs to fundamentally change how patients with end-stage organ disease are managed.
When the FDA cleared United Therapeutics' first kidney xenotransplantation clinical trial in 2025, Peterson called it a significant step forward in the company's mission to expand the availability of transplantable organs, with a goal of increasing access for the hundreds of thousands of patients with end-stage renal disease.
She is a scientist who leads from the front, speaks plainly about life-or-death stakes, and represents exactly the kind of woman in science whose story is worth telling.