Dr Amalia Ruiz Estrada

Biography

Dr Ruiz graduated in Biochemistry from the University of Havana, Cuba. She completed her PhD in Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology at the Autonomous University of Madrid. Her PhD research project focused on developing magnetic nanoparticles for different biotechnological and biomedical applications. Previously, Dr Ruiz held different postdoctoral positions across Cuba and Europe. In 2014 she joined the Centre for Advanced Studies in Cuba to investigate novel formulations of iron oxide nanoparticles and their toxicological evaluation in different in vitro and in vivo models. In 2016, she joined the University of East Anglia in Norwich as Senior Research Associate (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow) to work in the DNA-TRAP EU funded project to develop a range of antimicrobial nanoformulations and assess their therapeutic efficacy in in vitro models. Later, she moved to the Molecular and Cellular Biology Institute in Strasbourg to be part of the Graphene Flagship project, the European Union's biggest scientific research initiative, to assess the pharmacological behaviour of different graphene-based materials and their innovative application in cancer treatment. In November 2018, she started at the School of Pharmacy at Queen’s University Belfast, where her research was focused on the development of smart nanocarriers for targeted cancer therapy, as well as engineering novel nanoformulations to detect and treat aggressive metastatic prostate cancer. Currently, Dr Ruiz’s research focuses on the fabrication of multifunctional nanomaterials to target cancer and other diseases, developing novel nanomedicines for combinatory therapy and theragnostic applications and the safety evaluation of these nanomaterials applied to human health. Her long-term research career objective is to facilitate the translation of nanoparticle-based therapeutics from the lab to the clinic.