APS Announces PharmSci 2025 Award Lecture Winners
6 June 2025
The APS is pleased to announce the PharmSci 2025 Award Lecture Winners. We received a large number of applications and would like to thank all the applicants for their support. We are pleased to announce the winners as follows:
Professor Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu
DBE FMedSci HonFRSC, President,
Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK
Professor Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu, DBE, FMedSci is President of Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UCL’s Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience, 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 the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Council, as well as Chief Scientific Officer of Nanomerics Ltd, a company she co-founded.
Uchegbu is an inventor. Her company, Nanomerics Ltd. is a clinical stage biotech company, developing medicines that address sight threatening illnesses. Nanomerics has also out licensed medicines developed in her laboratory to a US pharmaceutical company. Technologies developed in Uchegbu’s laboratory have won prizes from the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Nanomerics Ltd. won the King’s Award for Enterprise 2024 in the Innovation category. The King’s Award for Enterprise is the most UK’s most prestigious business award.
Uchegbu’s work has been featured in BBC Radio 4 programmes such as Desert Island Discs and The Life Scientific as well as in The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph.
Uchegbu has served as Chair of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Scientific Secretary of the Controlled Release Society and she is the immediate past UCL Provost’s Envoy for Race Equality, a role in which she led on race equality work at UCL. Her work led to the removal of the names of prominent eugenicists from all of UCL’s buildings in 2020. Uchegbu 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.
Uchegbu’s popular science book – Chain Reaction – will be published by Hodder and Stoughton.
Uchegbu is listed in Bloomsbury Publishing’s Who’s Who.
Uchegbu was made Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in the King’s New Years Honours 2025.
“I feel so honoured to have been selected to receive this award. A vote of confidence from one’s peers is the ultimate accolade and I thank the committee for selecting me.”
Be sure to see Professor Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu’s presentation on “Using the very small to tackle the very large – our journey from concept to clinic” at PharmSci 2025.
APS Emerging Scientist Award
Dr Flávia Sousa
Assistant Professor at Groningen Research Institute of Pharmacy, University of Groningen, Netherlands
Dr Flávia Sousa is an Assistant Professor at the Groningen Research Institute of Pharmacy, University of Groningen, Netherlands. A pharmacist by training, she earned her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Porto and completed postdoctoral research at the Imperial College London (UK), Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italy), and Adolphe Merkle Institute (Switzerland). Dr Sousa is at the forefront of developing innovative biological nanotherapies for brain cancer treatment. Her pioneering research was focused on encapsulating anti-angiogenic monoclonal antibodies to enhance their efficacy in treating glioblastoma by normalizing tumor vasculature and the tumor microenvironment. Currently, she is advancing the development of a cancer nanovaccine for glioblastoma using state-of-the-art nanotechnology. Dr Sousa has secured prestigious grants, including the Fulbright Program, MSCA COFUND, and WINS, and was named an MIT Innovator Under 35 and a Female Science Talent in 2023. She has authored over 40 publications and received 16 international awards.
“I applied for the APS Emerging Scientist Award in alignment with the theme of this year’s conference, “Pharmaceutical Science Driving the Next Generation of Medicines,” as I see my research on cancer nanovaccines as a promising and innovative therapeutic strategy that fits this vision. My long-term goal is to develop locally administered, multifunctional drug delivery systems capable of reshaping the brain tumor immune landscape. I’m especially proud to receive this award from the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences, an organization committed to advancing excellence in pharmaceutical science. Having begun my postdoctoral career in the UK at Imperial College London, this recognition feels particularly meaningful. It not only validates the impact of my research but gives me even greater confidence in my mission to contribute to science that can save lives.”
Be sure to see Dr Flávia Sousa‘s presentation on “Nanovaccines for Brain Cancer: Advancing Immunotherapy Through Precision Drug Delivery” at PharmSci 2025.
APS Innovative Science Award
Professor Chris Scott
Chair of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Dean of Research, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences, Queen’s University Belfast, Ireland
Professor Chris Scott has 30 years experience in drug discovery and development in both academia and industry. Following helping launch and develop start-up company Fusion Antibodies which is now AIM listed, Chris established his group in the School of Pharmacy at Queen’s in 2003. He then became Director of the Patrick G Johnston Centre for Cancer Research in 2018 and is now Dean of Research for the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences. His group focuses on the development of new experimental therapeutic approaches and has successfully out-licenced antibodies and nanomedicines for the treatment and diagnosis of cancer and inflammatory disorders. A complex nanomedicine developed in his lab led to the development the US based company Aviceda Therapeutics, of which Chris is a scientific co-founder. Chris was also awarded a Royal Society Industrial Fellowship with GSK in 2012 and is a past member of the MRC DPFS panel, current member of the EPSRC Healthcare Technologies Scientific Advisory Team and Trustee of the British Society of Nanomedicine. In 2024, Scott led a team that secured £55M investment for the Future Medicines Institute through UKRI Strength in Places as a hub for translational development and LHS sector cluster growth in NI.
“APS is one of the most important and prestigious pharmaceutical societies in the world. It brings together academia and industry which is essential to drive innovative pharmaceutical science. I was attracted to apply given the prestige of the award and the quality of the previous winners. I was delighted to hear that I had won the Innovative Science Award for 2025 and really look forward to having the opportunity to present the work of my team, past and present, at such an important event.”
Be sure to see Professor Chris Scott’s presentation on “Small things can have big effects – manipulating cell signalling through nanoplatforms” at PharmSci 2025.
