Faculty & Staff

Ian Phillips, PhD, DSc, FAHA

Ian Phillips, who joined KGI in February 2006, received his PhD and DSc in pharmacology at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan and an instructor and fellow in the Division of Biology at the California Institute of Technology. From 1970-1980, he rose to Professor of Physiology at the University of Iowa. In 1977, as a Humboldt Foundation Scholar, Phillips spent a year at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. He discovered the brain renin angiotensin system, a finding important to hypertension, stroke, and development of new drugs.

In 1989, Phillips served as Program Director of Neurobiology at the National Science Foundation in Washington, DC. He worked at the White House Office of Technology on “The Decade of the Brain.” In 1980 he was at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). From 1980-2002, Phillips was Chairman of the Department of Physiology at the University of Florida. He built a modern gene-oriented department and founded the Division of Functional Genomics. In 2002, Phillips was appointed Vice President for Research at the University of South Florida, Tampa. As Vice President, he increased the economic impact of high-tech science in Southwest Florida and constructed a new research building, and business incubator in the USF Research Park.

In 2006, Phillips joined KGI, where he was appointed Norris Professor of Applied Life Sciences and founding director of the Center for Rare Disease Therapies. He also founded the Postbacc Pre-medical Certificate (PPC) and the Master of Science in Applied Life Sciences programs.

Among his career honors, Phillips was awarded the 2002 Christopher Columbus Award for Science and Technology (US Congress), the 1989 Lucian Award (McGill University) the highest award in Canada for research in circulatory disease. Among several grants, he was the recipient of two Howard Hughes Medical Institute grants and a MERIT award from NIH (10 years of funding). He was elected Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and a member of the US National Academy of Inventors.

During his career, Phillips has published 12 scientific books, more than 350 papers, and reviews. The impact of his work is high (h-index = 81, with over 21,000 citations) He recently published a book "A life in Science. Adventures, Discovery and Laureates" (Amazon).

At KGI, Phillips taught Writing an Orphan Drug Designation for the FDA, Advances in Gene and Cell Therapy, Writing and Editing Professional Papers, and Molecular Basis of Medicine. He taught in both the Henry E. Riggs School of Applied Life Sciences and the School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. His recent research was on gene switches for gene therapy, and on increasing Stem cell production.

He has been a strong advocate for people with rare diseases. In 2019, he received KGI's first “Lifetime Achievement Award“. He is currently a Professor Emeritus.