Dr. Crooke graduated from Williams college with a B.A. in biology in 1978. She received her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1986 in pharmacology.
Dr. Crooke was a founding member of the scientific staff at Isis Pharmaceuticals (now Ionis Pharmaceuticals) and worked there for 30 years.
She initially led a group that laid the foundation to understand the pharmacokinetics and toxicology of antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs).
From 2000-2020, she was responsible for building and leading the Cardiovascular, Metabolic and Renal Disease Drug Discovery Group at Ionis.
As vice president, she pioneered the use of antisense oligonucleotide therapeutics for the treatment of dyslipidemias, NASH, hypertension, heart, and kidney disease, culminating in over 10 human development candidates evaluated in clinical trials, with 2 achieving commercial approval (KYNAMRO® and WAYLIVRA®).
Other antisense drugs advancing in the clinic, which all use more advanced and potent chemistries targeting the liver, include pelacarsen, targeting apo(a), vupanorsen, targeting angiopoietin-like protein 3, ION449, targeting PCSK9, IONIS-APOC-III-LRx, the follow-on drug to WAYLIVRA®, IONIS-AGT-LRx, designed to inhibit angiotensinogen, and ION839, an inhibitor to PNPLA3.
Dr. Crooke is a member of the American Heart Association and has also served on the board of the Deuel Conference and the Akcea Therapeutics Scientific Advisory Board.
At present, she is a Senior Strategic Advisor to Ionis Pharmaceuticals and a founder and board member of n-Lorem Foundation, whose mission is to apply the efficiency, versatility, and specificity of antisense technology to charitably provide experimental ASO medicines to treat patients with ultra-rare diseases (<30 patients).