FEATURE + * Pending approval of her appointment at the time of writing A Promise to Deliver Professor Khuloud T Al-Jamal, an expert in engineering nanomedicines for targeted delivery to cancerous tissues, is a leading candidate for the Head of the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy at HKUMed*. Tasked with the vision of developing the Department into a School within three years, she aims to work with the existing team to enhance the Department’s capabilities. That will mean expanding junior and senior staff numbers and research and teaching activities and ensuring strong support systems are in place. ‘I am not going to do this by myself. It must be done by working with people because unless you make people want to change, you are not going to convince anyone,’ Professor Al-Jamal said. Her track record speaks for itself. She started working on the nano scale during its infancy and became a full professor before turning 40 – making her the first non-white female pharmacy professor under 40 at King’s College London. Her journey from her native Jordan was fuelled by determination. ‘I don’t take no for an answer because I always think that nothing is impossible. There is a first time for everything,’ she said. In the beginning, though, Professor Al-Jamal almost did not stick with pharmacy. Her education started at the University of Petra in Jordan, following in the footsteps of two other family members who are pharmacists, and she was not impressed with her prospects. ‘At first I hated pharmacy because I didn’t want to be someone who works in a shop,’ she recalled. However, her professors, including those from Iraq and an American visiting professor, ignited her passion for research. She graduated as the top student with a final GPA of 3.99. The next logical step was research, but this would require going abroad. Her interest in the emerging nanotechnology meant she needed access to special equipment unavailable in Jordan at that time. With support from her home university and funding from her PhD supervisor, she enrolled in The School of Pharmacy, University of London. ‘Nano was very new then and because nanoparticles are so small – about 10,000 times smaller than a human hair – you need an electron microscope to see them,’ she explained. ‘Nano allows for better control over drug delivery inside cells. I work in a field called dendrimers, the smallest nano structures, then.’ Professor Al-Jamal thrived in the lab but wanted more than just research. As she neared the end of her studies, she enrolled in pre-registration pharmacy training at The University College Hospital London while completing her PhD thesis. ‘The pharmacy training reaffirmed my commitment to research. It also enhanced my skills as a pharmacy educator because I learned what pharmacists can do,’ she said. ‘Pharmacy students often question why they need to learn certain topics? Why do I have to learn about chemistry of drugs or dissolution? Because we are the only ones who can be consulted about a drug’s instability, about whether a tablet can be broken in half, about whether medication should be taken with food.’ After her studies, she was 32
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