DrMaria Jose Martinez Bravo

My academic career began with a Pharmacy degree at the University of Seville (Spain), followed by a PhD in Immunology at the Institute of Biomedicine of Seville (IBIS) in Spain. During my PhD, I focused my research on the adaptive immune system and how it responds to allogeneic stem cell transplantation when minor histocompatibility mismatches exist between donor and recipient.

I then joined the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm for my first postdoctoral research experience, where I investigated exosomes as vehicles for cancer vaccination and as biomarkers for respiratory diseases.

Two years later, I started my second postdoctoral experience as a Research Associate at King’s College London (UK). I focused on developing a new vaccine against tuberculosis using a transgenic mouse model.

These projects, documented in high-profile peer-reviewed publications, gave me a solid scientific foundation and an international perspective from working across three countries.

In 2018, I shifted my focus towards teaching, joining University College London (UK) as an Associate Lecturer and being promoted to Lecturer in 2022. For four years, I have served as Deputy Director for the MSc Drug Discovery and Development and MSc Drug Discovery and Pharma Management programmes, enrolling together more than 100 students annually. In this role, I have organised timetables, recruited and hosted external industry speakers, and coordinated closely with academic colleagues and professional services staff. A particular priority has been strengthening links with pharmaceutical companies. 

All that experience guided me to the Senior Teaching Fellow role that I have held at Imperial College London (UK) since 2026. I am heavily involved in the development of the MSci Medical Science and Innovation. This is a very exciting project aiming to fill a very important gap found in the Health sector: professionals with strong scientific knowledge of several incurable diseases but with a strong understanding of the importance of involving all the relevant stakeholders in the Public Health domain: policy-makers, pharma industry, health professionals, national health system... I am delighted to work within Imperial to develop and deliver this amazing course and see the cohort of students thrive professionally.