The Life Scientific - Ijeoma Uchegbu

Loading player...
Imagine a nanoparticle, less that a thousandth of the width of a human hair, that is so precise that it can carry a medicine to just where it’s needed in the body, improving the drug’s impact and reducing side effects.Ijeoma Uchegbu, Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience at University College London, has spent her career with this goal in mind. She creates nanoparticles to carry medicines to regions of the body that are notoriously hard to reach, such as the back of the eye and the brain. With clinical trials in the pipeline, she hopes to treat blindness with eyedrops, transform pain relief and tackle the opioid crisis.Ijeoma took an unconventional route into science. Growing up in the UK and in Nigeria, she tells Professor Jim Al-Khalili her remarkable life story, from being fostered by a white family in rural Kent, while her Nigerian parents finished their studies, to struggling to pay the bills through her PhD as a single mum with young children.So passionate is Ijeoma to spread her love of science, she’s even turned to stand-up comedy to help get her message across!
3 Mar English United Kingdom Science

Other recent episodes

The Life Scientific - Anna Korre

As the famous frog once said, it's not easy being green. And when it comes to decarbonising industry, indeed, reducing emissions of all sorts, the task is a complex one. Fossil fuels are used to manufacture some of mankind’s most ubiquitous products, from plastics to cement to steel; and even…
25 Mar 28 min

The Life Scientific - Rosalie David

Rosalie David is a pioneer in the study of ancient Egypt. In the early 1970s, she launched a unique project to study Egyptian mummified bodies using the techniques of modern medicine. Back then, the vast majority of Egyptologists regarded mummies as unimportant sources of information about life in ancient Egypt…
17 Mar 27 min

The Life Scientific - Darren Croft

Darren Croft studies one of the ocean’s most charismatic and spectacular animals – the killer whale. Orca are probably best known for their predatory behaviour: ganging up to catch hapless seals or attack other whales. But for the last fifteen years, Darren Croft’s focus has been on a gentler aspect…
25 Feb 28 min

The Life Scientific: Bill Gates

Bill Gates is one of the world's best-known billionaires - but after years at the corporate coalface building a software empire and a vast fortune, his priority now is giving that wealth away. And his ethos for doing it has been shaped by science.Famed for co-founding Microsoft, in recent decades…
17 Feb 27 min

Uncharted: A Different Kind of Justice

A small, informal survey leads to shocking revelations about the US justice system, with its truths only uncovered decades later. Meanwhile, an ambitious portfolio manager discovers a perfect graph outlining eye-watering profits. But something doesn't seem right. Could the graph be accurate, or is it hiding a far more sinister…
10 Feb 27 min