Pharmacy

Structure - response in liposomal design

Queen’s University Belfast

Not stated

Location
Belfast, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Funding
Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Application deadline
Year-round applications

About the project

About the Project Provide a brief description of the project Lipid-based drug delivery systems offer tremendous potential for addressing unmet medical needs, including cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, and infectious diseases. These nanocarriers encapsulate a wide array of active pharmaceutical ingredients, from small-molecule drugs to proteins and nucleic acids, improving therapeutic efficacy while minimising off-target toxicity. Despite this promise, the widespread clinical translation of these technologies is hindered by key challenges, such as the absence of digital design frameworks, scalability limitations, and inconsistencies in manufacturing reproducibility. This PhD project seeks to elucidate the interplay between liposomal nanocarrier performance and its underlying lipid compositions. To this end, we have developed advanced analytical methodologies to probe the structural dynamics of drug-phospholipid interactions, as well as the kinetics of drug release and nanocarrier diffusion within physiologically relevant microenvironments. By establishing these fundamental structure-function relationships, this work will pave the way for more rational, efficient, and scalable development of lipid-based therapeutics. Training that will be provided through the research project microfabrication, microfluidics, Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRFM), microrheology, USP-IV drug release Expected impact activities Novel systematic design approach that will accelerate the development of new liposomal antimicrobials

Research areas

PharmacyStructure-responseinliposomaldesign