Nathalie Wauthoz

Nathalie is a pharmacist by training and obtained her PharmD degree in 2006 at Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). She obtained her PhD degree in Biomedical and Pharmaceutical sciences in 2011 under the supervision of Prof. K. Amighi in Laboratory of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics (LPB) at ULB. She has held several post-doctoral positions, one of them in Prof. J.P. Benoit’s Mint unit, INSERM UMR-S 1066 (Angers, France). Since 2017, she has been the Associate Professor in LPB, where she manages and develops the research projects in the inhalation field (nasal and pulmonary applications). Her research focuses on the development of DPIs to combat different diseases (e.g. lung tumours, infectious diseases, asthma and COPD). Strategies use different kind of drugs (e.g. poorly water-soluble or water-soluble drugs – conventional or from biotechnologies), and are developed to give optimal aerodynamic performance, lung retention and, where applicable, increased cell or tumour penetration. Formulations are therefore evaluated in vitro on culture cells and in vivo on preclinical models. She has also developed nasal formulations for the nose to brain delivery of nucleic acids (e.g. siRNA) or peptides and proteins, evaluated in vitro on epithelial cell membranes and in vivo by histology and on preclinical models. Finally, she has investigated cancer targeting in depth. She has focused on either localizing administration (inhalation against lung cancer; nose to brain against glioblastoma) and/or targeting tumour tissue or tumour cells (e.g. via endocytosis receptors). Based on her experience in the field and supervision of PhD students, which led to InhaTarget Therapeutics’ first two technologies in inhaled anticancer chemotherapy, Nathalie is a scientific advisor to the company.