Amy Lightner, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology
Aline W. Skaggs Chair
Research Focus
The Lightner lab focuses on inflammatory bowel disease, which is on the rise globally, now affecting 1:100 in the United States alone. Despite decades of research, scientists still don't understand what causes inflammatory bowel disease. Treatment options remain limited, placating symptoms rather than curing the disease.
Lightner’s lab uses organoids derived from human tissues taken from surgical patients to study the cause of inflammatory bowel disease and discover potential novel therapeutics that focus on tissue regeneration and restoration. This serves as a model for drug discovery, both in her lab and across collaborations with other labs. Products from her lab are then studied in first-in-human clinical trials to establish and underscore safety in this patient population, with a goal of providing better, more effective treatment options, while simultaneously better understanding the underlying disease.
