Prof Helen McCarthy

Professor Helen McCarthy holds the Chair of Nanomedicine in the School of Pharmacy at Queen’s University Belfast and is the Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Academic Business Development. Helen is also the CEO of pHion Therapeutics. Helen’s research is centred on novel non-viral delivery systems for nucleic acids and anionic small molecules. These are peptide delivery systems that are purposely designed to solve key criteria for controlled intracellular delivery. Apart from supervising >40 PhD students, >150 publications, >200 conference proceedings and editorial work, Helen has contributed new knowledge as the inventor of the RALA technology and is a named inventor on 18 patents. After 10 years of academic applications of the technology, Helen spun out her technology into pHion Therapeutics, which incorporated in 2017. pHion currently employs 20 and has recently secured new premises in Catalyst innovation centre in Titanic Quarter with state-of-the-art laboratories.