Author: Keng Wooi

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Keng gives MyCRS webinar on microneedles

Keng was invited by MyCRS, the Malaysian chapter of the Controlled Release Society, to give a webinar on the fabrication and characterisation of dermal microneedle devices. The webinar took place on Thursday, 30 June 2022, with a good turnout.

In the webinar, Keng covered the micromoulding of polymeric microneedles, imaging techniques, skin insertion tests and mechanical testing of microneedle devices.

This webinar had a special personal connection for Keng. He reflected on this when he opened the talk with: “Good afternoon and selamat sejahtera. I’m Malaysian myself, so this feels like I’ve come home.” Selamat sejahtera is the Malay greeting loosely equivalent to ‘I hope you’re well’.

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8th Galenus International Workshop

Our team attended the 8th Galenus International Workshop in Valencia, Spain between 27-29 April 2022. This was an interesting conference with topics covering 3D printing and microneedles. Right up our alley, you may say. Rach, Grace and Emma presented posters and, of course, thoroughly enriched and enjoyed themselves.

As usual, I did not keep up with the reporting on this blog (because, you know, busyness), so this post has been backdated. However, my Twitter followers may have seen some live updates at the time, which I have shared below.

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Naeem joins our team

COVID-19 put a lot of things on hold, including this long-anticipated trip by Dr M. Naeem Aamir to join us in Newcastle. The much delayed trip finally materialised this week.

Naeem is an Associate Professor at the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan. Sponsored by the Pakistani government, he will work with us to design pharmaceutical formulations for inflammation. I am delighted to be hosting Naeem for this work.

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Welcome, Djurdja!

This week, we welcomed Dr Djurdja Vukajlovic to our team as a postdoctoral researcher. Djurdja is a materials engineer and specialist in polymer and ceramics. She has joined in our efforts to develop a material that confers exceptional extended-release properties to pharmaceutical dosage forms. This material has recently enabled us to formulate a transdermal microneedle patch that continuously releases the drug for 2 months. Djurdja will split her time between the School of Pharmacy and the School of Engineering.

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Welcome, Surar!

Dr Surar Al-Hashimi is a physician with an interest in dermatology. She joins our team this week as a research assistant to examine the effect of laser ablation on the biochemistry of the skin. She brings to the team expertise in dermatology and research skills in molecular biology. We are delighted to welcome her to the team!

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Personnel update

This month, Daniel Yanes joins the research team to develop a microneedle drug delivery system based on a metallogel. Daniel is a student on the MRes Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine programme, with a background in chemistry.

Meanwhile, Amor has completed his MPharm research project on microneedle biosensor development and will now be focusing his energy on other aspects of his MPharm programme. We wish him all the best!

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Research associate/assistant position available

A research position is now open, for an immediate start, and tenable until 31 July 2022 in the first instance. The closing date for applications is 3 February 2022. Please see the advertisement for full details.

We have described the recent progress we have made in a novel drug delivery technology which, among other things, prolongs drug delivery beyond a month (read about it here , here and here). The research associate/assistant will be responsible for further development work to demonstrate a wide application of the drug delivery technology in various dosage forms, for the delivery of small molecules and macromolecular drugs (e.g. biologics).

This is a collaborative project between the School of Engineering and the School of Pharmacy at Newcastle University. Informal enquiries are welcome.

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December news roundup

Update

Happy new year!

Christmas has come and gone, and now we’re in a new year. I didn’t have time to post updates before the Christmas break (as usual), but I’m pleased to announce that 2021 ended pretty well for us.

First, we completed the SETsquared ICURe programme (Cohort 35) to evaluate the market interest in our novel drug delivery technology, and gleaned some pretty encouraging intelligence about how to proceed with commercialisation. It’s early days yet, but the good news is, we’ve been invited to take part in the follow-on programme in 2022. The team has worked extremely hard on this project and I thank everyone involved for taking it this far (special shoutout to Katarina, Wing, Nga, Tarek, Tim and Dale).

Secondly, we have secured £30,000 in additional funding from Newcastle University to further pursue the development and commercialisaton of this technology. We are seeking commercial collaborations/partnerships in this area, so we invite interested stakeholders to get in touch.

Thirdly, and separately, we have been awarded £10,000 in seed-corn funding, thanks to the Wellcome Trust, to investigate a novel diagnostic technology that is minimally invasive, rapid and patient-friendly. This has the potential to replace invasive blood draws and tissue biopsies in disease diagnosis.

I’m excited about these opportunities/challenges and look forward to a fruitful year in 2022.

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Welcome, Emma and Amor!

October 2021. At the start of the new academic year, we welcomed two members into the research team: Emma and Amor.

Emma is a UK-qualified pharmacist with an interest in drug delivery. She has now started her PhD project working on developing a medical microimplant with a view to empower patients to self-manage sustained release medications. The work is funded by an EPSRC PhD studentship.

Amor is a final-year MPharm student. He has been working on the validation of a microneedle immunobiosensor platform based on a new detection method our team has recently developed.

Welcome, both!

And note to self: next time, try to post updates before they become old news.

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Funding secured for market validation of drug delivery technology

We have recently secured £30,000 in Innovate UK funding to explore commercialisation options for our drug delivery technology through the ICURe programme. The technology, developed jointly with Dr Katarina Novakovic (School of Engineering) and Dr Wing Man Lau (School of Pharmacy), can deliver drugs through a transdermal microneedle patch continuously for over a month. The ICURe programme provides the project team with opportunities for enterpreneurship training and market validation, with a view to commercialising the technology.