Adah al-Mutairi

Adah Mutlaq al-Mutairi is a Saudi scientist, scholar, inventor, and entrepreneur. Her work focuses on nanomedicine, nanotechnology, chemistry, and polymer science. She is a faculty member and Director of the Center for Excellence in Nanomedicine and Engineering at the Institute of Engineering in Medicine at the University of California, San Diego "UCSD". She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Future Investment Initiative 'FII' Foundation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Al-Mutairi was granted about twelve American and international patents, some of which are licensed to industry, in addition to receiving numerous honors and awards.

Adah al-Mutairi was born in the United States of America. She then returned to the Kingdom and settled in Jeddah City, where she completed her general education before moving to Riyadh City. She later traveled back to the United States of America after receiving a scholarship to pursue her bachelor's degree.

Al-Mutairi earned her bachelor's degree in chemistry from 'Occidental College' in the United States of America in 2000. She earned her doctorate from the University of California in Riverside in 2005 and pursued postdoctoral studies in chemistry and chemical engineering from 2005 to 2008 at the University of California, Berkeley. She received the Kavli Fellowship in 2016.

In 2009, Adah al-Mutairi received the 'PhRMA' Foundation Award and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director's New Innovator Award for her work on "Chemically Amplified Response Strategies for Medical Sciences." That same year, she received the Thieme Chemistry Journals Award. In 2012, she was awarded the Young Investigator Award at the World Biomaterials Congress in Chengdu, China. In 2014, she received the ChemComm Emerging Investigator Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Young Investigator Award in the Polymer Materials Engineering Division from the American Chemical Society. The Director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, highlighted Adah al-Mutairi's work before the U.S. Congress as one of the four most significant American technological breakthroughs in 2012.

- Presenting the first polymeric nanoparticle that releases drugs in response to hydrogen peroxide concentrations that characterize inflammation.

- Developing the first near-infrared degradable polymer, enabling precise remote delivery of molecules.

- Creating an activatable MRI imaging agent with unprecedented contrast between the 'on' and 'off' states.

- Designing a polymeric nanoparticle that facilitates delivery to the cytosol through rapid degradation upon exposure to mild acid.

In addition to Adah al-Mutairi's participation in numerous scientific research projects. Al-Mutairi is the founder of "eLux Medical Inc.", a medical technology company established to develop the 'Nanolipo' technology she invented for fat removal.