Dr Emma McErlean has been a Lecturer in Pharmaceutical Sciences in the School of Pharmacy, Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) since 2021. Her research focuses on non-viral gene delivery methods, with specific interest in peptide delivery systems for gene therapy for ex vivo adoptive cellular therapies and in vivo tissue targeting. Her work brings together a unique combination of expertise in nanomedicine, drug delivery, biotechnology and biopharmaceuticals.

Dr Emma McErlean graduated from the School of Pharmacy (QUB) in 2013 with a First Class Honours Degree in Pharmacy and completed her pre-registration training in community pharmacy before joining as a registered pharmacist with the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland in 2014. She then returned to the School of Pharmacy (QUB) for her PhD, graduating in 2018. Her PhD research focused on development of novel cell penetrating peptides and modification of peptide composite systems for in vivo gene delivery applications. This work resulted in the discovery of novel peptide termed CHAT (Patent WO/2020/182728), for which Dr McErlean is co-inventor.

Following completion of her PhD, Dr McErlean worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Pharmacy (QUB) on a project funded by Prostate Cancer UK entitled: “Development of a mRNA Vaccine in a Microneedle Patch for Castrate Resistant Prostate Cancer.” This multidisciplinary project investigated the development of novel mRNA transcripts formulated into nanoparticles RALA peptide. Nanoparticles were loaded into polymeric dissolvable microneedle patches for application to the skin to deliver the vaccine to skin-resident immune cells and eliciting an immune response to prostate cancer cells. In addition, bioinformatic analysis of patient cohorts allowed direct stratification of patients; ensuring clinically relevant antigens were delivered in the vaccine.

Dr McErlean’s main research focus is on designing non-viral, peptide-based vectors to delivery of nucleic acids (DNA, mRNA, siRNA) with high efficiency and low toxicity.  She is interested in two main application pillars:

• Ex vivo engineering of immune effector cells (T cells & NK cells) to enable scalable CAR and other adoptive cell therapies, with emphasis on endosomal escape, viability, and manufacturing-fit processes that outperform electroporation/LNPs.
• In vivo tissue-targeted delivery, including strategies to cross or bypass biological barriers (e.g., blood brain barrier) and alternative administration routes

Dr McErlean has published in leading journals including Journal of Controlled Release and Journal of Nanobiotechnology and has been invited to present her research at various National and International Conferences. She is currently an executive board member for the Irish Society for Gene and Cell Therapy (ISGCT) and is a member of the European Society for Gene and Cell Therapy (ESGCT), European Society for Biomaterials and European Association for Cancer Research (EACR).

Dr McErlean obtained a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Teaching (PGCHET) in 2023 from the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work (QUB) and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is involved in teaching and supervision across all degree programmes delivered by the School of Pharmacy (QUB) including undergraduate MPharm, BSc Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, and postgraduate MSc Industrial Pharmaceutics, MSc Distance Learning and PhD programmes.

She is module coordinator for MPharm module PMY3303 Advanced Delivery of Large and Small Molecules and BSc module PMY1306 Systems Physiology. She teaches on a range of topics such as gene delivery, mRNA vaccines, cellular and systems physiology, and acts as supervisor for MPharm, BSc and MSc research projects.