Harriet Lea-Banks
Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Biomedical Engineering
Email: harriet.lea-banks@ucl.ac.uk
Address: Room 3.04, Malet Place Engineering Building
University College London
London WC1E 6BT
United Kingdom
UCL Profile: https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/103600-harriet-leabanks
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FDdwMwEAAAAJ&hl=en
Dr Harriet Lea-Banks is a Lecturer in the Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, specialising in ultrasound-mediated drug delivery in the brain. She leads the Faraday Lab on the Bloomsbury Campus, and is a member of the Biomedical Ultrasound Group (BUG) and the Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging (CABI).
Dr Lea-Banks recently relocated from Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto where her team developed ultrasound-sensitive agents for the treatment of neurological diseases and neuromodulation. Her team’s work using volatile perfluorocarbon nanodroplets to anesthetise specific parts of the brain has been featured on the covers of Theranostics and the Journal of Controlled Release.
Dr Lea-Banks completed an MEng in Acoustical Engineering at the University of Southampton, and carried out her doctoral training at the University of Oxford. Her DPhil thesis explored how particle density impacts ultrasound-mediated transport of nanoparticles for the treatment of solid tumours.
Now her team is working to develop the next generation of non-invasive therapies: using focused ultrasound and pressure-sensitive drug carriers to perform surgery-free treatments for oncology, hypertension and neuropsychiatric disorders.