Ijeoma Uchegbu, PhD, DBE profile page

Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu is a professor of pharmaceutical nanoscience at University College London, president of the Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge and CSO at Nanomerics. Uchegbu has studied drug transport mechanisms across biological barriers and created transformational drug transport nanoparticles. She was the first to show that peptides could be delivered across the blood-brain barrier to elicit a pharmacological response when presented as peptide drug nanofibers. She was also the first to demonstrate, via definitive pharmacology and pharmacokinetics evidence, peptide transport into the brain, using peptide nanoparticles delivered via the nose-to-brain route. Uchegbu has also won numerous prizes for her work and these include: the UK Government's Women of Outstanding Achievement in Science, Engineering and Technology 2007, Royal Pharmaceutical Society Pharmaceutical Scientist of the Year 2012, Special Recognition Business of Science Leadership Award 2023. In 2019, she received an honorary degree from Lincoln University and in 2024, she received honorary degrees from both the University of West London and Sheffield Hallam University. In 2024 Uchegbu was listed in Who's Who 2024. Uchegbu was made a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the 2025 New Year Honours.