Eleanor Stride

Stride completed her Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in the Ultrasonics group at University College London.[1][2] She had planned to work for Aston Martin.[3] Whilst there became interested in using ultrasound for imaging microbubbles, and was awarded a Royal Society Brian Mercer Innovation Feasibility Award.[1][4][5]

Stride was awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering lectureship at University College London, where she explored ultrasound for drug delivery.[6] Microbubbles in the bloodstream created a strong ultrasound echo, which allows doctors to trace where the blood is flowing.[7] Whilst at University College London she collaborated with the Wellcome Collection.[8] She was awarded an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Challenging Engineering Award in 2011.[9] That year she joined the Oxford Institute of Biomedical Engineering in 2011.[10] She is a Fellow at St Catherine's College, Oxford.[11] The award allowed her to develop new agents for targeted drug delivery, which allowed clinicians more control in transporting and releasing medical therapeutics.[9] Stride encapsulates deactivated drugs in 'carriers' which can be navigated around the body to a target.[6] She also explored how her novel agents interacted with cells and tissue.[9] Her research could be used to deliver chemotherapy.[12] She has several patents for the creation and imaging of microbubbles.[13][14] She created the spin-out company AtoCap.[15][16] AtoCap focussed on the treatment of chronic infections.[17]

Stride was appointed full Professor in 2014.[10] By using custom-designed magnetic arrays, the Stride group have managed to trap particles in tissue several centimetres deep.[18] She demonstrated that it is possible to load oxygen into microbubbles to improve Sonodynamic therapy.[19][20] She was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2017.[21]