DRUG DELIVERY - Key Persons
Alex graduated from Ulster University, Northern Ireland, in 2017 with a BSc (Hons) Biomedical Engineering degree with Diploma in Professional Practice, first class honours and distinction, respectively. Over the course of his degree he performed research in electrochemistry based sensor devices and for his dissertation, researched and developed microneedle arrays for drug delivery and sensing applications under the supervision of Professor James Davis. Receiving the Oxford Centre for Drug Delivery Devices studentship, Alex joined BUBBL and Wadham College as a DPhil candidate in October 2017 and is under the supervision of Professor Robin Cleveland and Professor Robert Carlisle. The main focus of his research is optimising the delivery and uptake of cancer therapeutics using ultrasound and cavitation nuclei.
Cameron graduated from Imperial College London with first class honours in Biomedical Engineering (MEng). His final year project was under the supervision of Dr James Choi, developing an acoustic monitoring technique to allow for the measurement of the velocity distribution of microbubbles. As a OxCD3-funded University of Oxford doctoral student, Cameron's current work explores real time monitoring of ultrasound mediated drug delivery. It is hoped that his work will allow for improved monitoring of ultrasound therapies making it easier to bring them to a clinical setting.
Chris joined the IBME in March 2017 as Senior Research Manager, supporting the OxCD3 team as project manager. He is a chartered mechanical engineer with a broad experience of project and departmental management in product development environments including Owen Mumford, Lonza Biologics, the automotive industry and engineering consultancies. Chris has a BSc(Hons) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Salford.
Professor Constantin Coussios was appointed to the first statutory professorship in biomedical engineering at the University of Oxford in 2011, with special responsibility for Drug Delivery and Therapeutic Devices. A video summarizing his team's pre-clinical and clinical research in drug delivery is available here.
Between 2007-2013, under an EPSRC Challenging Engineering award, he led a research team that demonstrated the ability of ultrasonically driven bubbles (cavitation) to overcome intratumoural pressure (2010) and enhance the delivery, extravasation and penetration of macromolecular drugs into tumours, first in vitro (2011, 2012) and then in vivo (JCR 2013, J. Nat. Canc. Inst. 2013).
Bernard graduated in 2010 with a BS in Physics from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He received his MS in 2015 and his PhD in 2017 from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA), both in Mechanical Engineering. Working with Professor Levent Degertekin and Professor Karim Sabra, his graduate work focused on the modelling and application of Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducer (MUT) arrays, with particular emphasis on their emerging use in medical diagnostics. In 2017, Bernard served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgia Tech, working on foldable array concepts for intracardiac echocardiography, and on the application of machine learning to ultrasonic myography for finger-tracking, gesture recognition, and prosthesis control. He joined OxCD3 in 2018 as a Postdoctoral Researcher working with Professor Eleanor Stride on array development for targeted drug delivery.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
Brian joins the Oxford Centre for Drug Delivery Devices (OxCD3) as part of a collaboration with the Seymour group in Oncology and is working to enhance the delivery of oncolytic adenovirus through conjugation of sonosensitive nanoparticles which facilitate initiation of acoustic cavitation whilst simultaneously shielding the virus from the immune system. Brian completed his BSc in Chemistry (Hons) at the National University of Ireland Galway and then relocated to Australia where he spent two years working as a Synthetic Chemist for a Sydney-based R+D pharmaceutical company investigating novel oncology drugs. He obtained his PhD from the University of Sydney under the supervision of Professor Roger Truscott where his research focused on the age-related changes that occur in long-lived human proteins and their implications for healthy ageing. He continued his research at Sydney University as a postdoctoral researcher where he investigated the mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease and cataract. As a postdoctoral scholar within the Davis group at Oxford, Brian worked a variety of projects all of which were based on chemically modifying proteins, peptides and sugars to understand, exploit and modify biomolecular function.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
- Industry Member
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
- Industrial Member
Luca received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Padova (Italy) in 2010, then completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Arizona State University on the design and synthesis of metallopetides containing non-natural amino acids acting as enzyme micmics for DNA cleavage and water oxidation. Between 2010-2012, he worked as a post-doctroral fellow at the Universiy of Padova, on the design of fluorescent probes for measuring chloride currents in neuronal cells. He joined the University of Oxford as a post-doctoral research assistant in 2012, working on developping quality control protocols for a commercial polysaccharide starting material. He subsequently joined OxCD3 in 2016 to work on the synthesis of stimulus-responsive droplets for brain drug delivery applications.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
- Industrial Member
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
- EPSRC Representative
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
- Intellectual Property Representative
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
- Industrial Member
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
- Industrial Member
- Industrial Member / Pfizer
Job Titles:
- Professor of Engineering Science
Eleanor Stride is a Professor of Engineering Science specialising in the fabrication of nano and microscale devices for targeted drug delivery. She obtained her BEng and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from University College London.
Following the completion of her PhD in the UCL Ultrasonics Group, in 2005 she was appointed to a lectureship and a Royal Academy of Engineering and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Research Fellowship during which she started working in the complementary area of micro and nanoencapsulation, developing new methods for fabricating bubbles, capsules and other nano and microscale layered structures for a range of biomedical and other applications. In collaboration with Prof. Mohan Edirisinghe (UCL) and Prof. Bonfield (Cambridge University) she has set up a spin-out company in this area (AtoCap Ltd.) whose current focus is the targeted delivery of antibiotics for the treatment of chronic infections.
She was appointed to a University Lectureship and Non-Tutorial Fellowship at St Catherine's College Oxford in 2011 and joined the Biomedical Ultrasonics, Biotherapy and Biopharmaceutical Laboratory (BUBBL) in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, becoming a full Professor in 2014.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
- Chairman / University of Oxford / Professor Fergus Gleeson
- Professor
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
- Professor of Medical Oncology / University of Surrey / Professor Freddie Hamdy
Job Titles:
- Old Road Campus Research Building
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
Len Seymour is Professor of Gene Therapies and Director of the Clinical Pharmacology section within the Department of Oncology. Professor Seymour is committed to translational research in cancer and brings expertise in virology, cancer biology and drug delivery. His main interest is to combine genetic and chemical engineering in development of biologics for treatment of cancer, including oncolytic viral vaccines. His team are now developing ‘armed' variants for immunotherapy or as cancer vaccines. The viruses are genetically engineered to express and secrete biologics selectively from tumours in vivo, allowing us to modulate the intra-tumour immune environment. Currently we are expressing TNF, gamma interferon, anti-CTLA4, anti-TGFbeta and anti-IL10 in preclinical systems, developing mechanistic hypotheses over how best to overcome peripheral tolerance and stimulate anticancer responses.
Job Titles:
- Administrator
- General Enquiries
Daphne has nearly ten years of administrative experience in higher education which includes roles at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. Most recently, she held an Executive Officer role at Oxford's Saïd Business School and is delighted to return to the Department of Engineering Science where she started her career at Oxford. Daphne holds degrees from Grinnell College and Indiana University-Bloomington.
Job Titles:
- Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center, Arizona, USA / Professor Nathan McDannold / Department of Radiology, Brigham & Women 's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
- Professor
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Professor
Robert Carlisle is an Associate Professor within the Institute of Biomedical Engineering (IBME) at the University of Oxford and a PI on OXCD3. He completed a PhD in gene therapy before performing post-doctoral work within the Department of Oncology at the University of Oxford investigating mechanisms to enhance the bloodstream stability of viral vectors. This was the beginning of his fascination with the challenge of how to improve the tumour delivery of anti-cancer therapies, especially the biologic agents which offer the most promise. A combined project with members of the IBME revealed the potential of physical stimuli to provide a solution to this problem. His subsequent transition to the IBME has allowed him to contribute to work which is now the focus of a Clinical Trial (TARDOX) and successful commercialisation (OxSonics.com). His team continues to work with a range of therapeutics across a range of applications including transdermal as well as tumour delivery. He has published over 40 peer reviewed papers, is named on 3 patents and presented at numerous conferences. He is also the associate director of the CDT in Synthetic Biology and the Director of the MSc in nanotechnology for Medicine and Health care at Oxford University.
Claudia joined BUBBL under the supervision of Professor Robert Carlisle upon completion of her MEng in General Engineering at the University of Oxford. She is currently a first year DPhil student working on modifying oncolytic viruses for their enhanced delivery with ultrasound within Work Package 1 of OxCD3 . Specifically, Claudia is looking at using polymers to coat Vaccinia virus to improve its systemic delivery, and using ultrasound to improve its overall tumour penetration and distribution.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford
Robin Cleveland is Professor of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford. He received the BSc and MSc degrees in Physics from the University of Auckland, New Zealand and the PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin where his doctoral research was on sonic boom propagation in the atmosphere. At the completion of his PhD he was award the F.V. Hunt Fellowship of the Acoustical Society of America which he carried out at the University of Washington in Seattle studying shock wave lithotripsy - breaking of kidney stones by shock waves. After two years in Seattle he joined the faculty at Boston University where he remained for fourteen years rising to the rank of Professor of Mechanical Engineering where he continued research in the general area of acoustics with a focus on biomedical applications. In 2011 he joined the Institute of Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Engineering Science at Oxford.
He carries out research in nonlinear acoustics with particular application to biomedical ultrasound. For OxCD3 his main focus is using shock waves to help deliver antibody fragments, and potentially other therapeutic agents, into cells with the goal of disrupting cancer. This involves understanding the interaction of shock waves with cells structures in order to open cell membranes. Other areas of research in cancer treatment include: high intensity focused ultrasound surgery for thermal ablation, use of ultrasound to monitor ultrasound therapy, and the development of shelled microbubble for ultrasound theranostics (targeted imaging and drug-delivery). Related topics include improving the use of shock wave lithotripsy and the role of sound and vibration in traumatic brain injury.
He is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and was an associate editor of its journal for 8 years. He was appointed to the board of the International Society of Therapeutic Ultrasound in 2013, was a Plenary Speaker at the International Symposium on Nonlinear Acoustics, Lyon, France (2015) and was the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Guest Lecturer at World Congress of Endourology, London (2015).
Job Titles:
- Professor of Molecular Biology
Terry Rabbitts has been Professor of Molecular Biology in the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford since 2012. He obtained a PhD at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill (NIMR). He held a post-doctoral fellowship in the Institute of Animal Genetics, University of Edinburgh (1971-1973) before being invited to join Cesar Milstein's group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge in 1973. He became a group leader at LMB in 1978 and succeeded Fred Sanger as joint Head of the Division of Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry in 1998, together with César Milstein and later with Sir Gregory Winter. He was appointed as Director of the Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine in 2007.
He has served on the Scientific Advisory Boards of several biotechnology start-up companies, almost all of which have been focused on antibody development and/or antibody use. He was Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of Cambridge Antibody Technology from its instigation until its Stock Market IPO and Chairman of the SAB of Quadrant Healthcare, until its acquisition by Elan. He was a member the Domantis SAB until the Company's acquisition by GSK, Chair of the Kymab SAB from 2010-2015, a Non-Executive Director of Iclectus and of Aberteno for three years and a Non-Executive Director of Aptuscan for three years until its acquisition by Avacta. He is currently Non-Executive Director of Orbit Discovery Ltd. and a member of the SAB of Biosceptre and of Avacta Life Sciences.
His team are trying to define how chromosomal translocation genes affect proliferation and differentiation from cancer initiating cells to overt cancer and in epithelial cancers, to invasive disease. This work amalgamates technologies for creating in vivo models of chromosomal translocations that mark the cancer initiating cells with fluorescent protein expression and transcriptome analysis deep sequencing RNA-seq to discover new potential therapy targets. Using new technologies to isolate intracellular antibody fragments to target protein function inside cells, the team are targeting oncogenic proteins complexes such as mutant RAS, LMO2, CMYC and P53. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers and over 60 book chapters and has an H factor of 85.
His work has been recognized through the award of a Colworth Medal (1981), the CIBA Prize (1993) and the Clotten Foundation Prize (2015). He has given several named lectures in recognition of his contribution to molecular biology and to the biology of chromosomal translocations, including the Nelson Lectures (University of California, 1988), the 5th Jan Waldenström Lecture (1989), the Louise Buchanan Memorial Lecture (1995) and the JS Ploem Lecture (2012). He was elected as a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) (1981), a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) (1987) and a Founder Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) (1998