Name of School Contact: Prof Nik Kapur

0113 3432152

n.kapur<στο>leeds.ac.uk

www.engineering.leeds.ac.uk/people/staff/n.kapur

Maintenance: £13,863 plus £3,000 top up     

Applicants should read the information below for further details on the scholarship or visit the School web site given below.

Further Information:

Complex formulation within pharmaceutical industries is used to deliver active pharmaceutical ingredients to patients to give both medicinal effect and delivery to patients, manufacturing associated with formulation is as important as drug production. Dominated by batch processing, any sensible view of production efficiency must include the strip-down, cleaning and de-contamination stages between the actual formulation steps.

Focus will be on cleaning/decontamination of manufacturing cycles. Unless care is taken, this absorbs a significant fraction of processing time and can be a source of cross-contamination. Detailed understanding of this step can increase equipment utilisation and assure product quality.

Scientifically, the project will be multifaceted and address material-surface interactions in the presence of fluid flow, the role of surfactant/other cleaning agents and defined tests in proving efficacy. Materials to be cleaned away are relatively complex, embedded bulk paraffin/paraffin emulsions and naturally occurring gels that exhibit phase changes around processing temperatures that change their viscoelastic/surface properties and therefore, ease of removal. Detailed understanding of chemical/physical phenomena that interact to deliver effective cleaning can support the development of robust processes which will assure patient safety by design, preventing possibility of cross contamination of medicines within multipurpose plant.  Additional elements to this project will include alternative and next generation cleaning technologies – in line with “factories of the future”.

The project will be supervised by Prof Nik Kapur with a background in fluid flow/jets and Prof Brent Murray with expertise in colloids and cleaning chemistry. Glaxo Smith Kline is sponsoring the CASE element of this work. The successful applicant will be supervised and work with GSK staff.

Start before 30 September 2015 for 42 months.

Formal applications for research degree study should be made on-line through the linkwww.leeds.ac.uk/rsa/prospective_students/apply/I_want_to_apply.html. Please state clearly on the funding section of the application form that you wish to be considered for the CASE award with GSK. In the research information section please state the name Prof Nik Kapur

School Web Address:

https://www.engineering.leeds.ac.uk/mechanical/

Minimum Academic Requirements (if English is not your first language, then candidates must also meet the University’s English language requirements):

Prospective students are welcomed from candidates with or expecting a First or Upper Second Class Honours Degree (or equivalent) from courses where colloids feature (e.g. chemistry, food science) or with an engineering background in fluid mechanics (Mechanical or Chemical). The successful applicant will have to be proactive in developing new skills as this is a multidisciplinary project.

Any Additional Requirements:

UK applicants will be eligible for a full award paying tuition fees and maintenance. European Union applicants will be eligible for an award paying tuition fees only, except in exceptional circumstances, or where residency has been establish for more than 3 years prior to the start of the course.