Eleanor
Professorial Fellow, Biomaterials
I did both my undergraduate degree and PhD in Mechanical Engineering at University College London, followed by a Royal Academy of Engineering and EPSRC Research Fellowship. I moved to Oxford in 2011 to join the Biomedical Ultrasonics, Biopharmaceuticals and Biotherapy Group (BUBBL) and became a full Professor in 2014. I am now leading a team working jointly between Engineering and Medicine. Outside of work my passion is dancing, especially swing dancing and I now teach for the Oxford Lindy Hoppers.
I lead a research team developing new methods to deliver drugs that reduce the risk of harmful side effects in treating diseases such as cancer. Currently most drugs for most diseases are given by mouth or by injection. The problem with that is that they go everywhere in the body and a very small percentage goes to the disease site. The rest is at best flushed out of the body and at worst leads to major side effects. We’re developing vehicles – bubbles specifically – to encapsulate drugs so they are inactive until they reach the target site. We want to get as many as possible in the target region, and then trigger their release. To do this, we are using ultrasound as it’s very low risk, very convenient for doctors and patients, cheap and seems to be extremely effective. We also use magnetic fields to get the bubbles to the target area.
I pursued a very mixed set of subjects at school: Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry together with Latin, Art and General Studies; and whilst I had always been much happier solving mathematics and physics problems than writing essays, I very much enjoyed the opportunities for independence and creativity offered by Art. After a visit to the degree show for the Industrial Design course at the Royal College of Art I was determined to pursue a career as an industrial design engineer and so enrolled as an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at UCL. During the final year of my degree, however, I became fascinated with ultrasound and subsequently the wider subject of medical physics and biomedical engineering.
I actually first visited the Hall in 2005 as part of a summer school on Biomedical Acoustics. It was a week that had a very profound effect on my career due to the people I met and the conversations that I had, especially in the bar, which I still think is one of the most lovely and atmospheric rooms in Oxford. St. Edmund Hall is one of the oldest parts of the University of Oxford and it’s amazing to be even a very tiny part of that tradition.