Drug Design and Development

Program Summary

Our PhD/MPhil Drug Design, Development and Delivery programme enables you to undertake a research project that will improve understanding of Drug Design, Development and Delivery.

Research and postgraduate study in the area of drug design, development and delivery can focus on the design of novel therapeutic drugs and new delivery approaches.

Multidisciplinary research areas include the following.

Molecular modeling and medicinal chemistry-based design, synthesis, evaluation and delivery of novel anti-microbial, anti-malarial, anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory compounds.

Design of new formulations to improve drug stability (stroke treatment), development of lipid-based nanocarriers and new excipients to improve drug delivery (tuberculosis treatment) and penetration of anti-amyloid drugs across the blood-brain barrier.

Modification of the behaviour of large bioactive molecules (eg peptides, proteins and plasmids) and analysis of delivery by image correlation spectroscopy.

We also study the ability of targeted liposomes to selectively deliver agents to the placenta and are using an in silico approach to optimise placental homing peptide function.