Karen Seibert
Pfizer Global Research & Development - St. Louis Laboratories
Vice President, Discovery Research

Dr. Karen Seibert is Head of Inflammation Research and Research Site Head for Pfizer at the St. Louis Laboratories.  Her responsibilities include the management of inflammation research programs at all stages, spanning early new target identification to exploratory clinical development for multiple patient populations.  Dr. Seibert is also a member of the Research Leadership Team.

Dr. Seibert is known as one of the principal investigators who identified the arthritis and pain drug, Celebrex®.  In studies initiated at Washington University in the late 1980's, Dr. Seibert and colleagues were the first to describe a novel enzyme involved in pain and inflammation (COX-2).  These discoveries led to the development of specific inhibitors of the COX-2 enzyme that provide significant improvement over current therapies for patients with arthritis. 

In 2000, she was awarded the Edgar Queeny Prize by the Monsanto Company for excellence in science and technology, in recognition of her contributions to COX-2 research, and in 2002 she received the Discoverer’s Award, an honor that the pharmaceutical industry pays to its scientists.

Dr. Seibert received her undergraduate degree in biological sciences from Northwestern University, a Master of Science in pharmacology from the University of Toledo, and a PhD. from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.  She was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis before joining Monsanto in 1991.  Dr. Seibert has delivered many papers worldwide in the areas of inflammation, pain, and cancer research and has coauthored nearly one hundred scholarly publications.