Mathura Thirugnanasampanthar is a first-year Maplethorpe Research Fellow at King’s College London, working on a nasal spray formulation of ondansetron for nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, and the more severe, hyperemesis gravidarum, under the guidance of Prof Ben Forbes and Clinician Dr. Melanie Nana. She completed her PhD in the Department of Chemical Engineering at McMaster University in a cross-disciplinary team under her advisor, Dr. Zeinab Hosseinidoust, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Bacteriophage Bioengineering, and her co-advisor, Prof. Myrna Dolovich, P. Eng, associated with the Firestone Institute of Respiratory Health at St. Joseph’s Hospital, McMaster University, with decades of experience in aerosol technology.
During her PhD, she assembled a custom-built aerosol exposure platform, a design based on the ASTM F2101-19 standard, to generate infectious aerosols, namely those containing bacteria and viruses. Bacteriophage Phi6 was used as a surrogate, as these viruses can physically and chemically resemble SARS-CoV-2 but are innocuous enough to be handled in level 1 laboratories. Notably, biologic aerosols, containing bacteriophages or bacterial viruses, can be used to combat multidrug-resistant strains of pathogenic bacteria. Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) is an important pathogen, responsible for recurrent and difficult-to-treat airway infections in cystic fibrosis patients.
Her research was presented at three Drug Delivery to the Lung (DDL) conferences, receiving the Pat Burnell Young Investigator’s Award in 2021 and the DDL Award for Best Academic Poster in 2022. Mathura’s research interests span aerosolised therapeutics delivery, respiratory infections, airborne disease transmission, and presently, nasal delivery for nose-to-brain targeting of antiemetics.