Take an Inspiring Look Into Frances Ligler’s Legacy of Innovation

Not many people can say their ingenuity has led to advances in fields from healthcare to military operations to food production — but National Inventors Hall of Fame^® Inductee Frances Ligler can. She invented portable optical biosensors, a type of sensor that can “see” a change in light or color when a chemical or biological contaminant is detected.

How did this visionary inventor make such a big impact with small sensors?

A Lifelong Explorer

“I was very inspired by people who would go into a land where they had no experience or didn’t know what to expect … just to find out what was there,” Ligler said in an interview with the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, she has always been interested in exploring nature. Her earliest adventures in nature began on fishing trips with her family and on her grandfather’s farm, where she grew up training horses.

As a high school student, Ligler won a science fair with a DNA-based project, and this motivated her to consider a career in science. She attended Furman University, where she graduated in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry. She later earned two doctorates from Oxford University, one in biochemistry in 1977 and the other in biosensor technology in 2000.

Discussing why she was drawn to biochemistry, Ligler explained, “I went into biochemistry because I like doing things with my hands and finding out about life in a hands-on way.”

A Pioneering Biochemist

In 1986, Ligler brought her passion for exploration and innovation to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. Here, she and her colleagues developed automated biosensors.

“A biosensor is a piece of hardware that incorporates a biological molecule to do detection,” explained Ligler. “The biological molecule can be an antibody or a piece of DNA or anything that can bind to a target that you’re interested in.”

Her team’s automated biosensors were configured for both the manual addition of samples and automated sampling. They could sample air while flying on a drone, or water while deployed on an unmanned undersea vehicle. These biosensors provided quick results in identifying and quantifying pathogens, toxins, pollutants, drugs or explosives.

Having developed a new chemistry for attaching biomolecules on sensor surfaces, Ligler integrated emerging technologies from different fields to make optical biosensors smaller, more versatile and more automated. Portable optical biosensors have since been used in a wide variety of applications, from food production plants to pollutant cleanup sites to clinics in developing countries.

During Operation Desert Storm, Ligler played a major role in creating tactical sensors that detected botulinum toxin and anthrax. By incorporating microfluidic channels and miniaturized optics, her work enabled portable devices into which users could simply inject a sample for testing.

Ligler and her team also developed the underlying technology for the RAPTOR portable, automated biosensor. This was tested by NATO for use in analyzing biological toxins and pathogens, and it was used to test water deliveries to U.S. Navy ships. Developing an even more advanced system, Ligler’s team incorporated a range of biological detector molecules to identify pathogens in food or indicators of disease in clinical samples.

An Innovative Leader

In 2013, Ligler became a professor in the joint department of biomedical engineering at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2022, she joined Texas A&M University where she is a Distinguished Professor and the Eppright Chair of Biomedical Engineering.

Her impact has been recognized with awards including the Simon Ramo Founders Award from the National Academy of Engineering in 2020 and the National Award in Analytical Chemistry from the American Chemical Society in 2022.

Ligler is also dedicated to inspiring and empowering others to become lifelong explorers and innovators in STEM. "As I think about my legacy as an inventor,” she said, “there's no greater tribute than being a mentor, role model and inspiration to future generations.”

One of the many ways in which Ligler reaches the next generations is through her support for the National Inventors Hall of Fame mission to recognize inventors, promote creativity, and advance the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship. Not only has she served as a Judge for the Collegiate Inventors Competition^®, but she annually visits Camp Invention^® program sites, sharing lessons and providing mentorship and encouragement to help young people build the innovative mindset they’ll need to become tomorrow’s groundbreakers and world-changers.

See More of the Story

For an exclusive look into Ligler’s life and legacy, watch the new video created by the National Inventors Hall of Fame in partnership with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

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