Brooke Ligon

Biography

Brooke Ligon, CEO and Founder, received her Bachelor of Arts from Southern Methodist University with Departmental Distinction. After working in student personnel at Hendrix College, she went back for a medical degree at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. There she was honored with the Winston K. Shorey Award for Outstanding Achievement, Compassionate Medical Care and Humanitarian Values. She received residency training in Neurology at Tufts Medical Center and was a clinical neurologist at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Boston. She is Board Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. She returned to Tufts University for a Ph.D. in Neuroscience, receiving a Mentored Clinical Science Development Award from the National Institute of Neurologic Disease and Stroke at the NIH and a Lillian Shore Post-Doctoral Fellowship. Her Ph.D. thesis and post-doctoral research were focused on the neuronal characteristics of the cells that make insulin, pancreatic beta cells. That research led to a treatment for diabetes which is the current focus of her company. Dr. Ligon has published articles in peer-reviewed journals and co-authored book chapters on insulin producing cells. Recently she has been the recipient of funding from the Maine Technology Institute, the Kyle Family Foundation and was the Principal Investigator for a Phase I Small Business Innovative Research grant from the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Disease to test the diabetes treatment efficacy. Dr. Ligon was a participant in Maine’s Top Gun program for entrepreneurial development in 2012. For 2013 Dr. Ligon is facilitating collaborations to move a highly effective diabetes treatment to the clinic.

Research Interest

 Biotechnology