Nanotechnology and the Brain

Dr. Khuloud T Al-Jamal, Reader in Nanomedicine, King’s College LondonDr. Khuloud T. Al-Jamal, BSc (Honour), PhD, MRPharmS joined KCL as a lecturer in January 2011. She is currently a Reader in Nanomedicine. She has completed her pre-registration pharmacy training at The University College London Hospital and was awarded the Overseas Research Award Scheme (ORSA) Scholarship from The University of London (2000-2004) to complete her PhD in Drug Delivery from The School of Pharmacy, University of London (currently known as UCL-School of Pharmacy). She was awarded the prestigious CW Maplethorpe Research and Teaching Postdoctoral Fellowship from The University of London (2005-2007) to explore the use of cationic dendrimers as anti-angiogenic agents for growth inhibition of solid and metastatic tumours. She has developed an extensive experience in designing and developing novel nanoscale delivery systems including dendrimers, liposomes, quantum Dots (QDs), viral vectors and chemically functionalised carbon nanotubes. Her current work involves pre-clinical translation of novel nanomaterials designed specifically for drug, siRNA, plasmid and radionuclide delivery for therapeutic or diagnostic applications. She reported for the first time the intrinsic anti-angiogenic activity of cationic poly-L-lysine dendrimers, and pioneered surface engineering of carbon nanotube-based vectors to deliver siRNA materials to the central nervous system (CNS) and solid tumours in vivo. She was awarded and is managing a number of research projects funded by The Royal Society, Worldwide Cancer Research, EPSRC, BBSRC, FP6, FP7 and ITN Marie Curie research programmes. In February 2012, she was awarded the BBSRC New Investigator award exploring the use of chemically functionalised carbon nano-needles as vectors for delivering therapeutics across the BBB. She was a winner of the Wellcome Trust photo competition in 2014 and 2015. In 2012, she was awarded the prestigious Royal Pharmaceutical Society Science Award in recognition for her outstanding scientific achievements in the field of Nanomedicine.