Centre for Doctoral Training in Transformative Pharmaceutical Technologies
The Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) is a partnership between University College London, the University of Nottingham, and SSPC - the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Pharmaceuticals.
The CDT provides world-class PhD training to early career researchers. Our graduates have the knowledge and skill to take active molecules from drug discovery and design, and transform them into medicines to treat patients.
Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Council in the UK, Science Foundation Ireland and a total of 19 industry partners, we provide world-leading training to prepare scientists for high achieving careers in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors.
- Our UK Partners University of Nottingham and University College London
- Current CDT Students Meet the PhD researchers
- PhD Studentships
Academic Supervisors
Prof. Anne Marie Healy, CDT Co-Director/Principal Investigator
Research Interests
Anne Marie Healy is Professor of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trinity College Dublin and is one of the Co-Directors of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Transformative Pharmaceutical Technologies. She is also Co-Principal Investigator of SSPC - the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Pharmaceuticals, and was awarded the SSPC Researcher of the Year in 2019. This award recognises Anne Marie’s many contributions to the Centre with exceptional scientific outputs.
Her research interests include pharmaceutical material science, preformulation and formulation of pharmaceuticals, amorphous solids, co-crystals, formulating poorly soluble drugs, pharmaceutical processing and pulmonary drug delivery.
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Anne Marie has a B.Sc. in Pharmacy and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics, both from the University of Dublin. She joined the School of Pharmacy, TCD in 1992 as a Lecturer in Pharmaceutics. In 2010 she was elected Fellow of Trinity College.
Professor Healy has published extensively, with over 100 international peer reviewed publications. She has graduated 20 PhD students, mentored 25 postdoctoral researchers, and has been awarded €10 million in competitive grant income.
Professor Healy has received funding from both national and international agencies to progress her research. As well as her involvement as Co-PI with the SSPC, she has held a Science Foundation Ireland Principal Investigator award focused on the development of fixed dose combination products using advanced pharmaceutical processing technologies. She has also received NIH funding to work on a collaborative project with the University of California, San Francisco and University College Dublin aimed at developing novel mucolytic therapies for lung disease. She was awarded a Special Visiting Researcher Fellowship by CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Brazil) in 2014 to further her collaborative research with the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Financial Support
Science Foundation Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, Irish Research Council, CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Brazil), National Institutes of Health (NIH, USA), numerous pharmaceutical companies including: APC, Xeolas, IVAX Pharmaceuticals, Merrion Pharmaceuticals, Velox GmbH, Amebis, Solvotrin Therapeutics, Pfizer, GSK, Merck, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Roche, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Alkermes, UCB Pharma, Abbvie, Clarochem, Innopharma Labs, Glantreo, Dynochem, Eirgen, Novartis, Allergan, Genzyme, Biomarin, FMC, SK Biotek.
Publications
Dr Abina Crean, Senior Lecturer in Pharmaceutics
Research Interests
Dr Abina Crean graduated with a degree in Pharmacy from Robert Gordon's University, Aberdeen, Scotland in 1992. In 1997, she completed a PhD in Pharmaceutics in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trinity College Dublin. Abina worked as a formulation scientist with Elan Pharmaceutical Technologies and as a Process Development Pharmacist at Servier (Ireland) Industries. Since joining the School of Pharmacy in UCC in 2003, she has been actively involved in the development of the new research facilities and curriculum.
Her research interests include pharmaceutical material science, preformulation and formulation of pharmaceuticals, amorphous solids, co-crystals, formulating poorly soluble drugs, pharmaceutical processing, pulmonary drug delivery and formulation stability.
Abina led the School of Pharmacy’s successful Athena Swan Bronze application in 2018 and is a member of the University’s Athena Swan Steering committee.
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Research Interests
My research interests are focused on the development of high quality, effective medicines through thorough investigation and understanding of the properties and associated behaviour of constituent materials (both API and excipients).
Examples of current research projects include:Publications
See Abina's UCC profile for a full list of publications (link below):
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Dr Steven Ferguson, Assistant Professor in Bioprocess Engineering
Research Interests
Dr Steven Ferguson graduated from UCD with a degree in Chemical & Bioprocess Engineering. He subsequently completed his PhD research in continuous crystallization of drugs as part of the SSPC Research Cluster. Steven has held positions in industry with the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing in the USA. Steven later worked for Biogen where he developed novel clinical forms for first in class drugs in collaboration with pharmaceutical sciences and engage in the development of flow synthesis and continuous manufacturing technologies.
Steven returned to UCD as Assistant Professor in Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering. His research group focuses on drug delivery, separations and advanced manufacturing of pharmaceuticals. He has assembled a multidisciplinary team with expertise in separation processes, downstream bioprocessing, process simulation, flow synthesis, unit operation & reactor design, crystallization and formulation; structured to be vertically integrated to bring fundamental insights from multiphase systems, reactions or separations, through simulations and prototypes to actionable technologies.
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Research Interests
Publications
See Steven's UCD profile for full list of publications
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Dr Lidia Tajber, Associate Professor
Research Interests
Lidia Tajber is Associate Professor in Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trinity College Dublin and is currently the Director of Research for the School. Lidia first gained an M. Pharm. degree from Medical University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland (with first class honours, ranking 1st in her class) and then pursued her Ph.D. degree in the School of Pharmacy, Trinity College Dublin (completed in 2005). She holds a postgraduate diploma in quality improvement and completed "Research leaders" training.
Lidia has published 76 high quality peer-review papers and contributed to numerous international conference presentations. Her current h-index is 25. She is also a co-inventor on a number of patent applications including "A method of producing porous microparticles" and "A polymeric nanoparticle". In addition to being an active researcher, she contributes to undergraduate (Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology module) and postgraduate (Preformulation, Formulation and Advanced Drug Delivery modules) teaching. She is part of the coordinating team for the MSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences course.
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Research Interests
My research programme concentrates on the fundamental understanding of molecular interactions governing the properties and performance of pharmaceutical substances (actives and additives) at molecular, supramolecular and formulation (drug product) levels. More specifically, the research topics pursued by my group are:
Advancement of the physicochemical and biopharmaceutical properties of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) by conversion into ionic liquids (anti-crystal engineering); development of oral solid formulations containing ionic liquids. Synthesis, phase characterisation and behaviour in formulation of alternative forms of APIs such as salts, cocrystals, amorphous materials, polymorphs and liquid crystals; construction of multi-phase diagrams for stability. Rational preformulation studies leading to quality solid-state formulations. Nanocrystal and polymeric nanoparticle formulation and characterisation methods.
Financial Support
My research efforts have been supported by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), Enterprise Ireland, Irish Research Council as well as the European Union. I am involved in the Synthesis and Solid State Pharmaceuticals Centre (https://www.sspc.ie/ ) as a funded investigator. I was awarded a prestigious SFI Career Development Award in 2017 on the development of pharmaceutical ionic liquid forms and also currently serve as Director of Steering Committee in a H2020 RISE network "ORBIS" (Open Research Biopharmaceutical Internships Support (http://orbisproject.eu/ , awarded in 2017). I currently supervise a group of 8 researchers and host visiting ORBIS secondees from the pharmaceutical industry.
Impact
My research activities fit with national policy objectives supporting the development and production of a highly educated and relevant workforce in demand by the pharmaceutical industry. My team and I have successfully participated in collaborative, multidisciplinary and industry-led research consortia (IDDN, SSPC, H2020 RISE) leading to high impact research, leveraging international funding and attracting talented people to Ireland. The ultimate objective of my work is to advance the pharmaceutical product design and manufacture to benefit the general public and enhance the quality of health stability.
Publications
Dr Katie Ryan, Assistant Professor
Research Interests
Dr. Katie Ryan is a lecture in Pharmaceutics in the School of Pharmacy, University College Cork. She graduated with a degree in Pharmacy from Trinity College Dublin, in 2001. Upon completion of her degree she undertook her pre-registration training with Élan Pharma and at Waterford regional hospital. Thereafter, she went on to pursue a PhD in Pharmaceutics with Prof. Pat Deasy in the School of Pharmacy in Trinity, in area of novel excipients for topical drug delivery.
In 2006, Katie joined the School of Pharmacy at UCC where she teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the areas of formulation science, novel drug delivery systems and statistics. She has undertaken a number of research visits to Prof. David Mooney’s Bioengineering lab in Harvard University investigating cellular responses to biomaterials used in drug delivery and tissue engineering. In 2013, she spent her sabbatical leave in the Mooney lab researching novel biomaterial strategies to promote bone tissue regeneration.
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Research Interests
Katie's research has focused on the design of next-generation orthopaedic medical devices with salient features (controlled surface topography, physicochemical factors, drug loading and release) to optimise device performance at the biological interface and the subsequent long-term performance in vivo. To this end, her research has investigated novel device coatings to direct biological responses and targeted drug delivery for infection control. Her interest in bone tissue and regenerative strategies also underpins her research in bioinspired biomaterials that are fabricated or functionalised to mimic native extracellular matrices found in tissues and thereby provide appropriate cues to influence cell response and tissue development. Building on the increasing understanding of cell/biomaterial interactions, it is a key goal to use biomaterials to design and develop smart scaffolds that target drug and morphogen delivery in a spatial and temporal manner to promote the effective regeneration of skin and bone tissues.
She has also been involved in a of number academic-industry collaborative projects focusing on vibrating-mesh nebuliser devices for pulmonary delivery, and the use of novel technologies (mesoporous silica) and related methodologies to enhance the delivery of poorly soluble drugs.
Publications
Dr Elizabeth Topp, Chief Scientific Officer
Research Interests
Liz holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering (BChE) from the University of Delaware, a master’s degree in engineering (ME) from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in pharmaceutics from the University of Michigan. She began her academic career in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. In 2009, she accepted an appointment as the Dane O. Kildsig Chair and Head of the Department of Industrial and Physical Pharmacy at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, a position she held until 2017. In 2019, Dr. Topp was appointed Chief Scientific Officer at NIBRT, maintaining her Purdue faculty appointment.
Liz’s research focuses on the formulation and stability of protein drugs, with an emphasis on peptides and proteins in the amorphous solid state. This fascinating but poorly-understood state of matter challenges conventional, “solution-state” understanding of the factors that control protein structure and reactivity. The work is also of practical importance, since many protein drugs are stored and/or marketed as amorphous solids.
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Research Interests
Liz and her group have adapted analytical methods, originally developed for proteins in biological systems, to protein drug formulations. They have developed solid-state hydrogen deuterium exchange with mass spectrometric analysis (ssHDX-MS) and solid-state photolytic labelling with mass spectrometric analysis (ssPLL-MS) to probe the environment of proteins in amorphous solids with high resolution. They have shown that ssHDX-MS results are highly correlated with storage stability for several model proteins. As a result, the method is increasingly being transferred to the industry, tested in the industrial setting and adopted to accelerate formulation and process development.
An outgrowth of the Topp lab’s interest in protein stability has been the development of novel phosphorylated derivatives of glucagon (“phosphoglucagons”) that inhibit fibrillation and improve solubility and stability. The compounds have been optioned by Monon Bioventures (https://mononbioventures.com/) for preclinical development with support from an NIH FastTrack small business grant (SBIR).
Liz is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of LyoHUB, an industry-led consortium dedicated to advancing lyophilization technologies (see www.lyohub.org). LyoHUB was founded in 2014 by Dr. Topp and Dr. Alina Alexeenko of Purdue’s College of Engineering. With initial support from the National Institute of Standard’s and Technology (NIST), LyoHUB has grown to more than twenty member companies spanning the lyophilization value chain. LyoHUB maintains a pilot scale Demonstration Facility in Purdue’s Discovery Park and hosts computational tools for lyophilization on its website. Current activities of LyoHUB include writing and disseminating “best practices papers”, generating recognized consensus standards in lyophilization through the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), and providing on-site and online training in lyophilization.
Her contributions have been recognized with a number of awards, including induction into Purdue’s Innovator Hall of Fame, the Chaney Faculty Scholar Award of Purdue’s College of Pharmacy, and the Michael J. Pikal NIPTE Distinguished Scholar Award in Pharmaceutical Processing. She Co-Chaired the 2019 Gordon Conference on Form and Formulation for Drug Discovery and is a member of the editorial advisory board of Molecular Pharmaceutics. She is a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS)
Research Areas
Liz's research focuses on the formulation and stability of protein drugs, with an emphasis on peptides and proteins in the amorphous solid state. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (U.S.), the National Science Foundation (U.S.), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (U.S.), the Food and Drug Administration (U.S.), the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and by various pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies.
Current Research Projects
- Kinetics and mechanisms of solid-state hydrogen deuterium exchange (ssHDX). Effects of temperature, excipients, protein structure, pre-lyophilization pH.
- Use of ssHDX-MS to evaluate processing effects on proteins in amorphous solids. Processes include lyophilization, spray drying and novel drying technologies.
- Preclinical development of novel, reversibly phosphorylated glucagon derivatives as water soluble, fibrillation-resistant alternatives to glucagon for hypoglycaemic rescue.
- Kinetics and mechanisms of pyroglutamate formation in solution and lyophilized solids.
- Development of an incubator for use in ssHDX-MS studies.
Publications
See full list of publications and research activities here
Learn more about Prof Topp group’s pioneering work on fibrillation-resistant peptide drugs here.
Dr Ioscani Jiménez del Val, Assistant Professor in Bioprocess Engineering
School of Chemical & Bioprocess Engineering, University College Dublin / Twitter:@UCDCell
Research Interests
Ioscani leads the Animal Cell Technology Group (ACTG) at the School of Chemical & Bioprocess Engineering, University College Dublin. UCD’s ACTG is a multidisciplinary team that combines advanced experimentation and computational strategies to optimise the production of biopharmaceuticals, including monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and gene therapy viral vectors.
Experimentally, ACTG develops and deploys synthetic biology and metabolic engineering strategies to enhance the productivity and quality of biopharmaceuticals derived from cell culture processes. Computationally, ACTG works on developing multi-scale mathematical models that describe cell culture dynamics, therapeutic protein glycosylation, cellular metabolic fluxes and full-scale integrated bioprocesses.
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Research Interests
Ioscani holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), a master’s degree in Advanced Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London, and a PhD in Chemical Engineering [Biological Systems Engineering] also from Imperial College London. In 2014, Ioscani joined the UCD School of Chemical & Bioprocess Engineering as Assistant Professor, where he acts as School Head of Teaching & Learning since 2019.
Ioscani joined SSPC – the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Pharmaceuticals – in 2019 and the CDT in Transformative Pharmaceutical Technologies in 2020. In 2021, Ioscani joined the International Biomanufacturing Network (IBioNe), an NSF-funded AccelNet programme that brings together all pharmaceutical bioprocessing research networks across the globe.
Since joining UCD, Ioscani has established collaborative projects with industry on evaluating and optimising the economic and environmental performance of pharmaceutical bioprocesses. Recently, Ioscani has developed next generation glycoengineering technologies that ensure biopharmaceutical quality at the molecular level. Ioscani is seeking to commercialise these technologies in collaboration with industrial partners and funding from Enterprise Ireland.
Financial Support
Science Foundation Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, Irish Research Council, the Mexican Council for Science and Technology (CONACyT), and the Applied Process Company.
Publications
Dr. Joey O Shea, Lecturer in Pharmaceutics
Research Interests
Dr Joey O'Shea is a Lecturer in Pharmaceutics in the School of Pharmacy, University College Cork and Director of the MSc in Pharmaceutical Technology and Quality Systems.
He completed his Bachelor of Pharmacy degree in UCC in 2012 and Master of Pharmacy degree in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 2013. Dr O'Shea completed his Ph.D. in the School of Pharmacy in UCC in 2018. The focus of his doctoral work was on the biopharmaceutical aspects of solid oral dose formulation performance and the predictive capacity of various in vitro, in vivo and in silico methods of characterisation for oral bio-enabling formulations. Following completion of his PhD, Dr O'Shea held numerous positions in the pharmaceutical industry in Ireland, including in formulation development, clinical and regulatory affairs and in process development and technical support. Dr O'Shea returned to academia in November 2019, taking up a role as Lecturer in Pharmaceutics in the School of Pharmacy, UCC. He is programme director of the MSc in Pharmaceutical Technology and Quality Systems, an online masters course designed to train graduates working in the pharmaceutical industry to become a Qualified Person (QP). He also teaches on the undergraduate M. Pharm. Programme and the postgraduate diploma in Pharmaceutical Regulatory Sciences.
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Joey’s research focuses on the biopharmaceutical aspects of drug delivery and biopredictive formulation characterisation to promote rational formulation design and improved R&D efficiency. In particular, he is interested in biorelevant dissolution testing and physiologically based pharmacokinetic modelling. The goal of the research is the development of a suite of biopharmaceutical tools aimed at improving bottom-up predictions of in vivo performance. He has extensive experience of pre-clinical pharmacokinetic studies in pigs, as a translational model with similar gastrointestinal physiology to humans. Joey also has a strong interest in novel drug delivery systems to enhance oral drug delivery, particularly lipid-based formulations and more recently in site-specific microbially triggered formulations targeted to the lower intestine. A key focus of his research is variability in oral drug absorption, including food mediated changes in bioavailability and microbiome induced pharmacokinetic changes, as well as altered drug absorption in special populations such as in paediatrics and oncology.
Current research interests include;
- In vitro- in vivo – in silico models for biopredictive formulation assessment
- Biopredictive dissolution testing
- Computational pharmaceutics, including physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modelling
- Novel formulation approaches to enhance oral drug absorption and site-specific release
Publications
Dr. Helen Sheridan, Associate Professor
Research Interests
Helen Sheridan B. Sc (UCD), PhD (UCD) is Associate Professor in Pharmacognosy and former Director of Research at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SoPPS) at Trinity College Dublin. She is an academic founder and director of the TCD centre for natural product research, NatPro. She is a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin and the Royal Society of Chemistry; a recipient of the TCD Provost’s award for teaching excellence and a recipient of the TCD Innovation Award for 'Societal Impact' in 2021. Helen has 86 publications including 7 international patents. She has graduated 33 PhD/ MSc students, and mentored 24 postdoctoral researchers. She currently has sixteen researchers in her group.
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Helen's collaborative and interdisciplinary research is in Natural Product (NP) chemistry; Traditional Medicine (TM); ethnopharmacology; global health and bioeconomy. Her research focusses on finding new therapies for disease and addressing global issues that may be resolved using NP approaches. During her career she identified a lead molecule from TM which her team advanced from discovery to human clinical trials. Helen co-founded the TCD Campus company, Trino Therapeutics Ltd, where she was co-PI on funding of approximately €13 million. She was also co-applicant on seven patents in the US, EU and Asia. In later years Helen has become involved in global ethnopharmacology, investigating quality, safety and efficacy of TMs, and the link between the established use of TM and its role in international development. She has supervised 5 research projects in sub-Saharan Africa. Helen was recently awarded €6M to direct a project entitled “Unlocking Nature’s Pharmacy from Bogland Species” focused on the therapeutic and economic potential of the Irish bog land plants, from scientific and educational perspectives. She is a collaborator on a further successful €3.5m award to be announced in the first week in March 2022. Helen is the Phytochemical expert to the Irish Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA). She is on the Board of the International Natural Product Sciences taskforce (INPST); was elected to the Board of the GP-TCM Research Association; and most recently was appointed by the Cross-Government Bioeconomy Implementation Group (BIG) to the Expert Advisory Group, as the expert in NP science, to support the National Bioeconomy Forum.
Funding
Helen has been awarded €19 million in grant income from national and international sources. Her funding comes from SFI, The Wellcome Trust, IRC, Enterprise Ireland, EOLAS, EU-FP7, EUH2020, Philanthropy, Industry & Venture Capital.
Teaching
Helen holds a TCD award for excellence in teaching. She has taught at all levels across the SoPPS curriculum and has contributed to courses across faculties. Her teaching is research led, maps frontier developments, is informed by government policy and international regulation, and is aligned with global development goals. Her course design and delivery involve synergy at the interfaces governing her discipline. She has recently been funded by the IRC ‘New Foundations’ scheme, to build educational and research collaborations between TCD, and Maseno University (Kenya).
Academic Administration
Helen has held senior administrative positions in TCD, including Director of Research SoPPS (2016-9); Academic Disability Liaison Officer (2006-To date); positions in safety at school, faculty and college level and is the faculty representative on the College Safety Committee. She was faculty representative on the Trinity International Development Initiative steering committee. Helen has acted as external examiner to the School of Pharmacy in UCL (2015-8); has examined at masters and PhD level nationally and globally; has acted as an international grant reviewer on several programmes.
Outreach
Helen is engaged in outreach with a range of stakeholders. Most recently she and her group have launched a national programme for Transition Year students looking at biodiversity, scientific and commercial potential of bogland ecosystems. Helen drives her research, teaching, and outreach toward mankind a difference to society.
Publications
Dr. Deirdre D’Arcy, Associate Professor
Research Interests
Dr. Deirdre D’Arcy qualified as a pharmacist in 1999. After initial training in clinical pharmacy, she commenced a PhD in pharmaceutical technology, in the area of hydrodynamic simulations and dissolution testing. She is currently Associate Professor in Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland.
Her research interests relate to hydrodynamics in dissolution testing, clinically relevant dissolution testing, clinical pharmacokinetics and pharmaceutical pedagogy.
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Her current research focuses on computational simulation and imaging of particulate dissolution to capture the effects of dissolution test set-up on particulate behaviour, including particle motion and viscosity effects, and pharmacokinetics. Of particular ongoing interest is the potential to use dissolution/drug release imaging and simulation to inform in vivo predictive product performance testing via pharmacokinetic modelling.
Current projects include: Developing in vitro and in silico models to explore in vivo availability from injectable preparations; Investigating drug particulate and formulation dissolution/release behaviour in biorelevant media using in silico simulation approaches; Development of novel imaging and imaging analysis technologies for pharmaceutical dissolution testing.
She has co-authored more than 65 peer-reviewed presentations and publications, was PI on two clinical trials and is currently supported by SSPC (https://www.sspc.ie/) The Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Pharmaceuticals and TCD Provost’s PhD awards.
Teaching
She has co-ordinated multiple postgraduate and undergraduate modules, module content topics include basic and clinical pharmacokinetics, bioavailability, bioequivalence, dissolution testing, IVIVC, formulation (injectables and ophthalmic) and sterile processing.
She is also Integration Co-ordinator for the Pharmacy (Integrated) Programme – promoting integrative learning across core science, clinical and experiential placement modules with impact on curriculum design, including syllabus mapping to national professional competences.
She has had involvement in 3 International EU-funded educational projects (Lead Institutional Contact for one).
Publications
Dr. Sonja Vucen, Lecturer
Research Interests
Dr. Sonja Vucen is a lecturer in Pharmaceutics in the School of Pharmacy, University College Cork (UCC). She graduated with a degree in Pharmacy from Medical Faculty University of Banja Luka, Bosnia in 2005. Upon completion of her degree she undertook her pre-registration training at the community pharmacy, and worked as a teaching assistant in Pharmaceutics at the University of Banja Luka. She subsequently completed her PhD research in the area of development novel pharmaceutical formulations for transdermal drug delivery at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade, Serbia.
Since joining the School of Pharmacy in UCC, first as a researcher in 2011 and then as a lecturer in 2014, Sonja has been actively involved in the number of academic-industry collaborative research projects. In addition to her research activities, she has contributed to development and teaching of both undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the area of pharmaceutical science and technology. She also holds a postgraduate certificate in Teaching and Learning for Higher Education from UCC and is a part of the coordinating team for the MSc in BioPharma Processing programmes.
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Sonja’s research interests include design and formulation of rational, safe and effective medicines for non-invasive routes of administration with an emphasis on optimising their performance and improve patient compliance. In particular, her research focuses on understanding the influence of formulation differences and process parameters on product attributes and clinical performance.
To this end, several ongoing projects underpin her research focus:
- Development and characterisation of microneedle drugs, proteins and vaccines delivery systems
- Using emerging in silico PBPK modelling platforms for predicting formulation performance in vivo
- Development and validation of dermatopharmacokinetic (DPK)-based methodologies to assess the bioavailability of topically applied drugs formulations
- Optimization of nanostructured vehicles for targeted RNA therapy for specific patient populations (cancer, sepsis)
- Formulation, processing and biophysical characterisation of peptide and protein lyophilised formulations.
Publications
Dr. Joanna McGouran, Assistant Professor
Research Interests
Joanna obtained a 1st class MChem Degree from the University of Oxford. Following this she completed her D.Phil. entitled "Probing sugar-plant-soil signalling" at the University of Oxford with Professor Ben Davis. Joanna then worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Professor Benedikt Kessler in the Department of Medicine, where she created novel ubiquitin-based covalent capture probes and developed inhibitor screening assays. She returned to chemistry department at the University of Oxford in 2014 to work with Professor Tom Brown where her research focused on the study of DNA cross-link repair enzymes, developing new tools to study their selectivity and activity.
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In 2016, Joanna moved to Trinity College Dublin to take up the position of Schuler Assistant Professor in Translational Organic Chemistry. Her research focusses on creating chemical tools through biomolecule modification. To achieve this her research group has developed expertise in peptide, protein and nucleic acid modification, including bottom-up total synthesis and top-down late-stage modifications. Her lab also focusses on novel bio-responsive and bio-orthogonal systems which can be triggered by external stimuli.
Publications
Dr. Carsten Erhardt, Professor
Research Interests
Carsten is Professor in Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trinity College Dublin (TCD). In 2013, he was elected Fellow of TCD. Carsten’s research studies the disposition and epithelial transport of drugs following their administration to the lungs using in vitro and ex vivo models. Moreover, he is interested in molecular origins of airways disease. Carsten has edited 1 book and (co-) authored >110 peer-reviewed publications and over 250 abstracts. He is the recipient of honours and awards from the German Pharmaceutical Society (DPhG), American Physiological Society and Galenus Foundation.
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Carsten serves as Associate Editor of Journal of Aerosol Medicine and Pulmonary Drug Delivery and Section Editor of European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and is a member of the Editorial Boards of European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics, Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Pharmaceutics, and Pharmaceutical Research.
In 2013, he hosted the first Workshop on Pulmonary Drug Delivery, which has become a regular event alternating between Dublin and Istanbul and attracting over 100 attendees annually.
Publications