Heather A. Wasserman, PhD is currently a Senior Director in External Innovation (EI) at Lilly Research Laboratories in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is responsible for the evaluation of potential in-license and partnership opportunities in autoimmune indications, including the in-license of the BTK inhibitor from Hanmi. Dr. Wasserman joined Lilly in 2013, as a EI Director. Before coming to Lilly, she was a pre-clinical research scientist in the Immunology Department at Human Genome Sciences. Her research interests included the development of immune modulators in autoimmune diseases, specifically asthma and arthritis. She received her BS  in Biology from the University of Maryland in 1996 and her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 2005. Dr. Wasserman then went on to do a post doc at Emory University with an emphasis in T cell tolerance and anergy.  Dr. Wasserman has published in peer reviewed journals, and is a co-inventor on two US patents.