Drug Design and Delivery

Our members are international leaders in their field, undertaking collaborative research with leading Pharma companies and SMEs, and our work has resulted in a number of patents. We receive UK grants to work with experts in industry who have experience of synthesis and development.

Research in drug discovery involves the chemical synthesis and biological evaluation of compounds and pro-drugs that have potential anticancer and antibacterial properties, as well as the development of new synthetic methods to make such compounds, prodrugs and nano-composites.

Strong formulation activity is built around nano-formulation, biopharmaceutical challenges, aspects of solubilization, and the developmental area of clinical pharmaceutics investigating drug/drug and drug/excipient interaction. We also have experience in the delivery of drugs to the lung.

Research and development in collaboration with industry enables us to understand molecular behaviour in complex environments. Professor Robert Forbes has a track record in this area to help bring new analytical technologies to market and we are working to enhance coating and 3D-printing technologies for drug delivery.

We are also interested in exploiting molecular conformation in the design and preparation of diagnostic probes to detect enzymes over-expressed in disease; the bio-membrane interaction of novel nano-sized drug delivery systems; and the utilization and validation of our in-house blood brain barrier model.