Zahraa Al-Ahmadyv, BSc. MSc. PhD.

My work as research fellow at the North West Center for Advanced Drug Delivery (NoWCADD) at Manchester Pharmacy School & the Nanomedicine Lab involves the development of innovative therapeutic and in vivo imaging approaches for cancer therapy and degenerative medicine. I am working specifically to advance the in vivo evaluation of new pharmaceutical nanotechnology in collaboration with AstraZeneca in order to enhance the clinical translation of novel therapeutics.

My research interest lies in the development, testing and optimisation of selective triggerable cancer treatments in vitro and in vivo, using novel nano-sized drug delivery systems encapsulating chemotherapeutics and directing those towards either tumour cells or tumour vasculature. I am increasingly focused on the impact of improving drug bioavailability using external triggers such as mild hyperthermia. I am also interested in the importance of exploiting non-invasive imaging techniques that could allow personalized medical treatment. In this way the distribution and accumulation, of the chemotherapeutics, into the tumour can be monitored non-invasively and the therapeutic efficacy can be assessed in real-time. The main goal is to combine diagnosis and therapy through theranostics drug design that would be certainly more valuable for predicting and measuring the therapeutic response and render the clinical translation more feasible.

My current and future research priorities fit into three broad areas:

• In vivo evaluation of the therapeutic potential of novel drug delivery systems for cancer therapy.

• Biomedical imaging.

• Nanotechnology to enhance neuroprotection of the brain ischemic region post-stoke.

Member of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences

2013 - PhD in Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine, Nanomedicine Lab, UCL School of Pharmacy, UK.

2009 - MSc in Drug Delivery, The School of Pharmacy, University of London, UK. 

2004 -BSc degree in Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, University of Baghdad, Iraq.