DrSoumaya Ben-Aicha Gonzalez

Dr Soumaya Ben-Aicha is a cardiovascular immunology and translational medicine researcher at Imperial College London. She obtained her PhD in Medicine and Translational Research from the University of Barcelona, graduating Excellent Cum Laude and receiving an Excellence Award. During her doctoral training, she also undertook a research placement at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), Germany, gaining experience in cardiac electrophysiology and broadening her international research collaborations.

Her research focuses on the interplay between immunity, lipid metabolism and cardiovascular disease, with particular emphasis on coronary artery disease (CAD). She investigates how tissue-resident and circulating immune populations, particularly macrophages, are shaped by the local cardiovascular microenvironment and contribute to disease progression. Her work integrates human translational studies with molecular and cellular approaches, single-cell and multi-omic technologies, and advanced computational analysis.

A major focus of her research is understanding how extracellular vesicles and lipoproteins, including HDL and LDL, regulate macrophage phenotype, lipid handling and inflammatory signalling. Her programme also explores the development of lipid- and nanoparticle-based therapeutic strategies to modulate pathogenic immune responses in cardiovascular disease. Her broader expertise encompasses hypercholesterolaemia and cardiovascular risk, RNA-based mechanisms, extracellular vesicle biology, and the application of computational and machine-learning approaches to biomedical research.

Dr Ben-Aicha has received competitive national and international recognition for her research. She was awarded a British Heart Foundation (BHF) Centre of Research Excellence Fellowship and subsequently secured a BHF Project Grant as Principal Investigator. Within the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), she has served on the Scientists of Tomorrow Nucleus and is part of the core of the ESC Working Group on Atherosclerosis and Vascular Biology, and in 2026 was appointed an ESC Basic Science Ambassador and Chair. She has also contributed to the BHF Centre of Research Excellence Early Career Committee and to research governance and integrity activities at Imperial College London.

She is an active member of the European Society of Cardiology and the European Society for Clinical Investigation and contributes to research, teaching, mentoring and scientific leadership across cardiovascular and immunology communities.