Meet our Scientists: Linda Thompson, Ph.D.

Dr. Linda Thompson was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was profoundly influenced by her high school chemistry and math teachers and first aspired to become a high school teacher. However, undergraduate studies at The University of Michigan awakened a love of the laboratory, and she decided instead to attend graduate school and study biological chemistry. After receiving her Ph.D., she taught chemistry and biochemistry at The University of Nevada, Las Vegas for three and a half years. A desire for more research opportunities led her to California. There, she did post-doctoral training at The University of California, San Diego with J.E. Seegmiller, a leader in the field of inherited metabolic diseases. Working in Seegmiller’s lab triggered her interest in understanding how the human immune system develops and why mutations in specific genes lead to hereditary immune deficiency diseases. After completing post-doctoral work, Dr. Thompson joined the faculty of Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, California. There, she worked closely with pediatric immunologists in the community to help diagnose infants suspected of having inherited immunodeficiency diseases.

After almost 9 years at Scripps, Dr. Thompson moved to Oklahoma City in 1989 to work at OMRF. Her work centers around influenza, inflammation, adenosine deaminase deficiency, which is a form of severe combined immunodeficiency (the “bubble boy” disease portrayed in a motion picture by John Travolta), and normal immune system development. She is still inspired by the words of her post-doc mentor who asserted that patients with inherited diseases are “experiments of nature.” His philosophy was that scientists have a responsibility to learn as much as possible from these patients to develop cures and new treatments.

Dr. Thompson is a co-founder and Scientific Advisory Board Member of Intergenetics, a biotechnology company located in the OUHSC Research Park that will soon release a breast cancer risk assessment test. Dr. Thompson believes strongly that all women should take responsibility for their personal breast health care by learning as much as possible about their individual risk and strategies for its reduction and management.

Dr. Thompson’s desire to understand why the immune system sometimes fails to do its job persists to this day. Indeed, this desire spurred her on to apply for a contract from the National Institutes of Health to study why some patients with lupus fail to get protection from influenza vaccinations. She is very excited about working with a group of scientists at OMRF and OUHSC on this five-year project.

Dr. Thompson lives in the Belle Isle division of Oklahoma City. She loves to travel and confesses that attending scientific conferences in interesting places around the world is one of the fringe benefits she enjoys the most. Her favorite meeting venue is Heron Island, a small coral island on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia where thymus biologists meet every three years to share their research findings. She also enjoys hiking in our national parks, SCUBA diving, cooking, and gardening. She considers herself fortunate to have her parents living in the Oklahoma City community. She loves the collegial and supportive atmosphere at OMRF and can’t imagine working anywhere else.

For more information about Dr. Thompson's research at OMRF, please visit her webpage.