Chief Medical Officer, Calibr-Skaggs Institute for Innovative Medicines

Professor and Aline W. Skaggs Chair, Scripps Research

Amy Lightner is the chief medical officer at the Calibr-Skaggs Institute for Innovative Medicines, a professor and holder of the Aline W. Skaggs Chair in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Scripps Research and a colorectal surgeon at Scripps Clinic in San Diego, California. Dr. Lightner earned her medical degree at Boston University, performed her general surgery residency training at the University of California, Los Angeles, and completed postdoctoral work at Stanford University in stem cell biology. She finished her surgical training with a colorectal fellowship at Mayo Clinic where she stayed on as an assistant professor of surgery and was the medical director for the Center for Regenerative Medicine. She was later recruited to Cleveland Clinic as an associate professor of surgery, and to serve as the director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine and Surgery. She was recruited back to her hometown of San Diego to actively continue her work in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) drug development for Scripps Research and surgical practice at Scripps Clinic and Rady Children’s Hospital. She is the principal investigator of six active phase II clinical trials using mesenchymal stem cells for IBD, and has received extramural funding from the Helmsley Foundation, the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, Cure for IBD, the Rainin Foundation and the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgery (ASCRS). She is the surgical co-chair for the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organization (ECCO), chair of the Southern California Chapter of Young Women in Bio, vice chair of the clinical practice guidelines committee for ASCRS, and also serves on the executive council for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation.