Jaclyn Dunphy

Jaclyn Dunphy completed the Flagship Pioneering Fellowship in 2018 and subsequently joined Flagship Pioneering as an associate. At Flagship, she works with other entrepreneurial scientists to explore new areas of biology, launch new ventures, and assist in strategic planning for existing companies in the Flagship ecosystem.

Jaclyn earned a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Tufts University in 2018, working on glial cell signaling in the laboratory of Dr. Phil Haydon. She used a light-mediated protein inactivation technique to attenuate vesicular release from glial cells to study their contribution to synaptic signaling. She was awarded the Ruth L. Kirschstein Pre-doctoral National Research Service Award to complete this work.

During her Ph.D., she co-founded a pharmaceutical company, Cabin Labs, which discovers and develops small molecule therapeutics for chronic pain conditions. In addition, she led the Tufts Biomedical Business Club, whose mission is to train biomedical scientists to become business leaders in health and life sciences. As President of the club, she organized career seminars, skill-building workshops, panel discussions and networking events for students, post-docs and members of the Boston biotech community.

Jaclyn received her M.S. in Biomedical Sciences from Kent State University in Ohio in 2012. She studied how disrupted glial cell differentiation led to spongiform pathology in a retrovirus-induced model of neurodegeneration. Jaclyn received her B.S. in Biology with a minor in Spanish from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio in 2008. During her undergraduate studies, she spent a semester abroad in Nicaragua where she completed coursework and volunteered in the oncology wing of a children’s hospital.