BWIS Speaker Series: Ester Caffarel-Salvador, 'Charting a Scientific Career Across Countries and Professions,' 6/29

June 23, 2023

By Amber Aponte

Ester Caffarel-Salvador

Ester Caffarel-Salvador, Associate Director of Strategic Innovation for Rare Diseases at Chiesi USA, and a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), will give a talk, “Charting a Scientific Career Across Countries,” on Thursday, June 29, at 4 p.m. This event will be held via Zoom and is sponsored by Brookhaven Women in Science (BWIS).  

Caffarel-Salvador is a multidisciplinary scientist with a double degree in Biotechnology and Biochemistry, an M.Ed. in Physics and Chemistry from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, a Ph.D. in Pharmacy from Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), and a mini-MBA from Harvard University. For her post-doctoral research at QUB, she collaborated with world-leading companies (L’ÓREAL, Lohmann Therapy Systems) in developing microneedles for transdermal drug delivery applications.

In 2015, she joined the laboratory of Prof. Robert Langer at MIT, where she developed a pill to administer insulin orally, now in clinical trials, which led the MIT Technology Review to recognize her as one of the 35 Innovators Under 35 in 2019. Her work at MIT also resulted in several international patents and publications in high-impact journals including Science and Nature Medicine.

Later, Caffarel-Salvador led the scientific strategy and business development of a biotech startup and consulted for international scientific laboratories and startups. In 2019, she joined LEO Pharma as the Associate Director of Regenerative Medicine, where she led various gene therapy projects aimed at treating rare skin diseases. Now, as the Associate Director of Strategic Innovation for Rare Diseases at Chiesi USA, she scouts and evaluates innovative therapeutic modalities that may provide long-term solutions for patients with rare diseases.

Caffarel-Salvador is based in Boston where she remains a lecturer at MIT. She speaks seven languages and is passionate about advocating on career development for women in science.

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