Professor Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu

Professor Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu DBE FMedSci HonFRSC is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a governor on the Wellcome board (one of the largest biomedical sciences research charities in the world), a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences Council and Chief Scientific Officer of Nanomerics Ltd. In 2024, Ijeoma was installed as President of Wolfson College, having been elected to the position in November 2023. She has served as Chair of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences and chaired EPSRC and Science Foundation Ireland grant prioritisation panels. She served as the UCL Provost's Envoy for Race Equality, a role in which she led on race equality work at UCL. Her initiatives (e.g. Dean’s Pledges on Race Equality) were instrumental in achieving UCL's Bronze Race Charter in 2020. She has also presented to the UK House of Commons on the educational racial disparities that lead to a lack of ethnic minority representation in scientific research.

Ijeoma has studied the mechanisms of drug transport 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 and 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. These findings led to the enkephalin pain medicine candidate Envelta™, which was designed to address the opioid crisis. The technology underpinning Envelta™ won first prize in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Emerging Technologies competition in 2017 and the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences Science Innovation Award in 2016.

Ijeoma 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 and others. In 2019, Ijeoma received an honorary degree from Lincoln University and in 2024, she was listed in Who's Who 2024. Ijeoma was made a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the 2025 New Year Honours.