The National Measurement Laboratory (NML) at LGC appoint Academic in Residence at Strathclyde
The National Measurement Laboratory (NML) at LGC recently appointed their second Academic in Residence, Dr Zahra Rattray, based at the NML’s Centre for Advanced Measurement Research and Health Translation at the University of Strathclyde.
Dr Zahra Rattray is a pharmacist and an interdisciplinary translational pharmaceutical scientist with over 15 years' experience of working across the academic, industry and clinic sectors. She received her PhD in drug delivery from the University of Manchester in 2013, and later completed a postdoctoral research position at Manchester, developing new analytical pipelines for profiling antibody stability. Zahra has significant experience in formulation and drug delivery from her time at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals and during her postdoctoral research at the Yale School of Medicine Cancer Centre respectively. In her current position as Senior Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde, Zahra explores protein engineering for improved developability and efficacy and develops bioanalytical measurements for profiling the nanoparticle protein corona, as well as studying patterns of genetic alterations giving rise to chemoresistance in breast cancer.
Currently, metrology is not routinely implemented within drug discovery and delivery research. As NML Academic in Residence, Zahra will be a core part of our Centre at the University of Strathclyde and a valuable link in developing the relationships between the Centre and the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors in Scotland and across the UK to support reliable innovation and ensure accuracy and validation of methodology in drug delivery research.
“Through our extended network and working with the NML’s extended network, we can potentially create collaborations that will really drive this effort forward and underpin it.”- said Dr Rattray on the impact of implementing metrology to drug discovery and delivery research.
Since 2019, Zahra has been collaborating with several teams across the NML. A recent highlight is the development of a comprehensive system to advance nanomaterial metrology for next generation diagnostics and therapeutics. She is also exploring new opportunities to work with our Northern Cell Metrology Hub at the University of Leeds around cell metrology, in collaboration with other stakeholders, including the Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre in Glasgow.
Zahra will also be working closely with other academics in our Centre at the University of Strathclyde, linking with researchers in other LGC business units, as well as increasingly establishing links with other NML Academics in Residence, such as Professor Neill Liptrott at the University of Liverpool.
We welcome Zahra’s appointment and are excited to be supporting her efforts in promoting the visibility of analytical sciences in translational pharmaceutical and healthcare research. This will, undoubtedly, have huge potential in advancing clinical and commercial translation of novel drug discovery, development, and manufacturing in the UK.
Dr Zahra Rattray, NML Academic in Residence at Strathclyde