Prof. Marcelle Machluf is a senior lecturer at the Technion Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering in Israel. Her research interests include: Developing nano-particles for the delivery of anti cancer drugs to the brain and other organs; developing nano-delivery system for DNA vaccination; and tissue engineering of heart and blood vessels under the auspices of Technion's Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI).

Machluf was born in Morocco

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

 and moved to Israel with her mother and grandmother when she was one year old. She grew up in Ashdod. Her mother supported the family as a seamstress and a cleaning lady. After completing high school and her army service, Dr. Machluf received a B.Sc. in biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

 from Hebrew University. She went on to receive her Master of Science

Master of Science

A Master of Science is a postgraduate academic master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is typically studied for in the sciences including the social sciences.-Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay:...

 and a Ph.D.

Ph.D.

A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in biotechnology engineering from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Negev

The Negev is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The Arabs, including the native Bedouin population of the region, refer to the desert as al-Naqab. The origin of the word Neghebh is from the Hebrew root denoting 'dry'...

. She conducted her postdoctoral research as a fellow at Harvard Medical School

Harvard Medical School

Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....

, and focused on gene therapy

Gene therapy

Gene therapy is the insertion, alteration, or removal of genes within an individual's cells and biological tissues to treat disease. It is a technique for correcting defective genes that are responsible for disease development...

, tissue engineering

Tissue engineering

Tissue engineering is the use of a combination of cells, engineering and materials methods, and suitable biochemical and physio-chemical factors to improve or replace biological functions...

 and the control of drug delivery in cancer therapy.