Adah Almutairi
Adah Almutairi is a scholar, inventor, and entrepreneur. Almutairi is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry; affiliate faculty in the departments of Bioengineering and NanoEngineering; and Director of the Center for Excellence in Nanomedicine and Engineering in the Institute of Engineering in Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Her work focuses on nanomedicine, nanotechnology, chemistry and polymer science. Almutairi is a 2016 Kavli Fellow and has received numerous honors and awards such as the NIH director's new innovator award in 2009 for her work on "Chemically Amplified Response Strategies for Medical Sciences". Almutairi holds over a dozen U.S. and International patents, many of which are currently licensed in Industry. Almutairi is the Founder of eLux Medical Inc.Early life and education
Almutairi was born on November 1, 1976 in Portland, Oregon, United States to Saudi parents. She moved to Los Angeles in 1997 to complete her higher education. She graduated from Occidental College with a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 2000.
She obtained her Ph.D. in materials chemistry from University of California, Riverside, with a focus on electron delocalization and molecular structure in 2005. She completed her Postdoctoral Studies in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, from 2005 to 2008. At Berkeley Almutairi worked with Jean Fréchet where she developed several nanoprobes for in vivo molecular imaging. She joined the University of California, San Diego in 2008, and has been there ever since, as the director of excellence in Nanomedicine.Contributions
Almutairi holds over ten US and international patents, two of which are licensed to pharmaceutical industries. Her academic contributions throughout her career to Pharmaceutical Sciences are listed below:
- Introduced the first polymeric nanoparticle to release drug in response to Concentrations of hydrogen peroxide characteristic of inflammation.
- Developed the first near infrared-degradable polymer, which enables Precise remotely controlled delivery of molecules.
- Created an activatable MRI agent with unprecedented contrast between "on" and "off" states.
- Designed a polymeric nanoparticle that enables delivery to the cytosol by rapid degradation upon exposure to mild acid.
Awards and honors
Almutairi has received several awards for her contributions in science and medicine including:
