Nanoscale Horizons Emerging Investigator Series
Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Dr Joelle P. Straehla (Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Seattle Children’s Research Institute/University of Washington, United States)!
Since the launch of Nanoscale Horizons, the journal has had a clear vision to publish exceptionally high-quality work whilst acting as a resource to researchers working at all career levels. We continue to be impressed by the quality of the research published and at the same time are looking for new ways of recognising and promoting the outstanding authors behind articles published in the journal.
We launched our Emerging Investigator Series to showcase the exceptional work published by early-career researchers in the journal and regularly select a recently published Communication article to feature in an interview-style Editorial article with the corresponding author. We hope that the series will also benefit the nanoscience community by highlighting the exciting work being done by its early-career members.
We are excited to share our latest Emerging Investigator, Dr Joelle P. Straehla (Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Seattle Children’s Research Institute/University of Washington, United States)!
Read our interview with Joelle here
Joelle P. Straehla, MD, is a Principal Investigator at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and a pediatric neuro-oncologist in the Brain Tumor Program at Seattle Children’s Hospital. She is an assistant professor of pediatrics and adjunct assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington, and a member of the Fred Hutch/UW/Seattle Children’s Cancer Consortium. The Straehla Lab advances drug delivery technologies for pediatric cancers, with a particular focus on cancer nanomedicine. Operating at the intersection of nanotechnology and cancer biology, the lab works to bridge engineering innovation and clinical practice—designing new nanoparticle-based therapeutics, identifying the biological regulators of nanoparticle delivery, and developing strategies to overcome difficult tissue barriers, including the blood–brain barrier, in order to bring safer, more effective treatments to children with cancer. Dr Straehla received her MD from Northwestern University and completed her pediatric residency at Seattle Children’s Hospital/University of Washington. She trained in pediatric hematology/oncology at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, where she also gained additional training in biological and chemical engineering in the laboratory of Dr Paula Hammond at MIT. Prior to joining Seattle Children’s in 2024, she was an Instructor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a Charles W. (1955) and Jennifer C. Johnson Clinical Investigator at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. In the clinic, Dr Straehla cares for children with brain and spinal cord tumors and is active in local and national consortia focused on improving drug delivery for brain tumors through collaborative research.
Congratulations to Joelle for her excellent work! You can read her featured Emerging Investigator article from Nanoscale Horizons below.
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Subcellular nanoparticle trafficking investigated with label-free, live cell imaging Elizabeth B. Nelson, Gil Covarrubias; Namita Nabar; Victoria F. Gomerdinger, Anderson Scott; Paula T. Hammond and Joelle P. Straehla Nanoscale Horiz. (2026) 11 (4): 1011–1021 |
We hope you enjoy reading our interview and featured article and are looking forward to sharing our future Emerging Investigators with you!
Do you publish innovative nanoscience and nanotechnology research? Submit your latest work to Nanoscale Horizons now. If you are eligible for the Emerging Investigators series, you could be considered to feature in one of our future interviews! Find out more about the eligibility criteria and the process in this editorial introducing the series.
