Postdoctoral researcher
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Scilifelab and Karolinska Institute, Sweden
Dr. Ana Spencer is a postdoctoral researcher in the SciLifeLab PULSE MSCA Cofund program, working in the Anna Herland lab at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. Her research focuses on developing targeted LIPID nanoparticles for brain repair using advanced in vitro models.
She earned her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal (2024), with her doctoral project based at i3S - Institute for Research and Innovation in Health, where she developed neuron-targeted nanoparticles for siRNA delivery using a nervous-system-on-chip. During her PhD, she was a guest researcher at Tel Aviv University, Israel, supported by an EMBO Scientific Exchange Grant and a COST STSM grant. Ana also holds two master's degrees: one in Molecular Genetics and Biomedicine (NOVA University of Lisbon, 2017) and another in Economics and Management of Innovation (University of Porto, 2021), complementing her technical expertise with a broader perspective on innovation.
She has been trying to bridge nanomedicine and microfluidics to advance nucleic acid delivery to neuronal cells. She has authored multiple publications and has presented her research at numerous international conferences. She is currently a member of the European Society for Biomaterials (ESB), European Organ-on-Chip Society (EUROoCS), and the Controlled Release Society, including the Young Scientists Committee (YSC).
Beyond research, Ana is actively involved in science outreach, being a member of a neuroscience communication Portuguese project "Talk Neuro to Me," and has supervised several master's and bachelor's students
