Education

Jackeline Soto received her BSc in Industrial Chemistry from Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica in 2014. Then, she completed her Licenciatura in Polymer Chemistry at Universidad Nacional, focusing on the biosynthesis of gold nanotriangles and their characterization. This research was carried out under the supervision of Dr. Oscar Rojas Carrillo from Laboratorio de Investigación y Tecnología de Polímeros (POLIUNA). In this research, liposomes were applied as a template phase to generate gold nanotriangles. During this time, she was also a collaborating student in a FEES project called Smart Materials. In this investigation, chitosan was obtained from shrimps, characterized, and applied as stabilizing agent in multiple systems.

After that, she pursued a master’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). At this stage, she developed a method for optimizing the synthesis of biocompatible microcapsules based on natural conjugates. This project was carried out under the supervision of Prof. Hougjing Dou. In this project, she designed conjugates based on dextran and oleic acid and used them as primary building blocks in the biosynthesis of microcapsules. In 2020, she moved back to Costa Rica, and she learned how to purify gold nanotriangles by using centrifugation and depletion-induced flocculation (micelles with different compositions), highly increasing the concentration of gold nanotriangles in the system.

Honors and awards

In 2014, Jackeline was highlighted as ¨Distinguished student¨ for having the highest average score of the whole student generation. Also, she completed her Licenciatura with fellowships from FOCAES and Cenat-CONARE. In addition, she was the recipient of the honor mention Summa Cum Laude for her thesis defense of Licenciatura. Moreover, she continued her studies in Shaghai with the Ministry of Commerce of China (MOFCOM) fellowship. Nowadays, she is doing a PhD in the University of the Basque Country thanks to Marie Sklodowska-Curie individual fellowship. 

Research

In last years, biomaterials have evolved to meet the demand and high-quality standards, increasing their specificity and functionality. In the biomedical area, the material must have many requirements including a controlled structure, high specificity, biodegradability, and dynamic functionality to perform specialized functions in the body. Taking this into consideration, her main interests have been focused on synthesizing self-assembly biosystems based on biopolymers and phospholipids for improving their biocompatibility. This has been a teamwork effort due to different local, national, and international collaborations immersed in those projects. In May 2023, she joined the Responsive Polymer Therapeutics Group as a PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Marcelo Calderón and Dr. Ana Beloqui. Her research will be focused on developing a reproducible methodology to obtain protease-sensitive nanogels, encapsulate and release antibodies, after crossing the blood brain barrier, in the environment of glioblastoma cancer cells. 

Responsive Polymers for Therapeutics

Publications