Dr Nicola Ingram

Profile

Current role: Microbubble Enhanced Imaging and Therapeutic Delivery. A multidisciplinary project in conjunction with the Medicines Discovery Catapult.

Previous roles

Development of an aerosolised slow-release analgesic nanomedicine for application during abdominal surgery. A multidisciplinary project between Chemistry, Medicine and Mechanical Engineering.Therapeutic Microbubbles. A multidisciplinary project between Physics, Medicine and Electrical Engineering.

Intestinal tumorigenesis following loss of interleukin-4 receptor function: an opportunity to develop novel anti-colorectal cancer therapy.

Therapeutics screening for treatment of prostate cancer and prostate cancer stem cell function. Pro-cure Therapeutics Ltd.

Gene Therapy for Ovarian Cancer.

Research interests

I have been actively involved in the generation and preclinical testing of novel therapeutics throughout my career. My PhD was on Gene Therapy at the Institute of Cancer Research where I developed retroviral vectors targeted to hypoxia in the stroma. I then continued in virology by examining the factors that would affect adenoviral gene therapy in ovarian cancer. Subsequently, I spent some time in industry working on prostate cancer stem cells. Following this I carried out some mechanistic studies on role of the IL-4 receptor in the progression of colorectal cancer. In 2010, I joined the Leeds Microbubble Consortium where I have developed targeted, ultrasound-triggered drug delivery to colorectal cancers using microbubbles and am continuing to do this. I have also generated and tested a range of nanoparticles preclinically including; lipid-polymer hybrid vesicles, affimers, quantum dots and gold nanoparticles. I have a particular interest in the targeting of novel nanoparticles to cancer and multi-modal imaging of this for preclinical assessment.

Qualifications

• PhD Chester Beatty Laboratories, Institute of Cancer Researc
• BSc (Hons) Molecular Biology with Industrial Experience (IIi). The University of Manchester

Professional memberships

• Member of the British Association for Cancer Research

Student education

Lecturer on the MSc Molecular Medicine (University of Leeds)

Lecturer on Ultrasound Imaging (BSc, MSc)

Supervision Commitments

PhD co-supervisor on developing nanoparticles for theranostic approaches to cholangiocarcinoma including an active role in developing cholangiocarcinoma research in collaboration with the Liver Unit at St James’s University Hospital

Day-to-day supervisor for 2 PhD students working on microbubble-mediated drug delivery and LOND nanoparticle delivery on microbubbles

Research project supervision 3rd and 4th Year MBChB students

Research project supervision 4th Year MSc Medical Physics students

Research project supervision for MSc Molecular Medicine students

Research groups and institutes

• Leeds Institute of Medical Research at St James's