PhD Studentship: Nanoengineering in Pharmaceutical Formulation

Key information

Lead supervisors: Dr Vikramjeet Singh 

Application deadline: ongoing

Project start date: 01 October 2024

Project duration: 3.5 years

Studentship funding: Full Home/UK tuition fees (currently £6,035/year) and maintenance stipend (currently £20,622/year)

PhD project description

A 3.5-year PhD Studentship on pharmaceutical formulation, specifically, design and development of cutting-edge new excipient technology is available within the Manufacturing Futures Laboratory, UCL East campus. The studentship will commence on 1st October under the supervision of Dr. Vikramjeet Singh.

This project deals with the design and development of new excipient technology for enhancing solubility and stability of sparingly soluble and unstable active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). The study will also involve investigation into mechanical properties of the formulated products to correlate with compression forces during formulation processing. Among others, the project will exploit metal-organic frameworks (MOF), a reticular class of materials for their use as excipients. The project also involves elements of machine learning models for screening appropriate excipients from FDA data base. 

Person specification

• Applicants should have (or expect to be awarded) a Master's degree in a relevant Engineering subject such as mechanical engineering or biomedical engineering.
• The individual will be expected to respond to tight deadlines. Good analytical and verbal reasoning skills and experience in academic presentation are essential.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

1. Study design, data collection and analysis
2. Attend UCL courses and training (e.g. in research study design, good clinical practice, medical statistics, time management, paper writing).
3. Literature research
4. Manuscript writing for submission to peer-reviewed journals
5. Attend weekly research meetings
6. Other duties as required by the supervisor for the delivery of the role

Eligibility

Please note that the available funding supports tuition fees at the Home/UK rate (currently £6,035 per year). Students who are eligible to pay fees at the UK rate are welcome to apply (e.g. UK students or EEA or Swiss nationals who are “settled” or “pre-settled” within the UK in accordance with the EU Settlement Scheme). Please refer to our website for further information about Home tuition fee eligibility.

International students who are eligible to pay tuition fees at the Overseas rate (currently £31,100 per year) are also welcome to apply, however the tuition fees covered by the studentship will be limited to the Home/UK level. International students will be required to find additional funding for the remaining Overseas tuition fees.

Applicants whose first language is not English are required to meet UCL's English language entry requirements.

Please refer to this webpage for full eligibility criteria: Mechanical Engineering MPhil/PhD

About the Lead Supervisor

Dr Vikramjeet Singh is Lecturer in Nanoengineering at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London. He is a member of the Manufacturing Futures Lab (MFL) at UCL East. He has published around 50 original research articles in reputed international journals including Advanced Materials, Nano Letters, Chemical Communications etc. His research covers a wide range of topics from biosensing to drug-delivery and surface engineering.

How to apply

Eligible applicants should contact Dr Vikramjeet Singh (vikramjeet.singh@ucl.ac.uk). 

Please enclose the following documents:

• A one-page statement outlining your personal experience, academic achievements, and suitability for the project.
• CV (including contact details of two referees).

After discussing the project with Dr Singh, eligible applicants should submit a formal PhD application via the UCL website, by clicking the 'Apply' button, above.

The supervisory team will arrange interviews for short-listed candidates.

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