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.

Dr. Pearce 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 chair of the consortium assembly for the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC).

As President of Innovation, Research, & World Clinic at Sanford, he oversees the development of research programs, including more than 450 researchers, eight research centers and more than 300 ongoing clinical trials.