Dermal Drug Delivery & Diagnostics Laboratory
Dr Keng Wooi Ng @ Newcastle University
Yay! Rach came to attend her PhD graduation ceremony today and paid us a visit. I think she was reasonably impressed by the new capabilities we’ve acquired and progress made since she finished her PhD research with us.
Many congratulations, Dr. Rachael Dixon!
What if we could detect or even predict skin cancer with a simple skin swab, before a tumour is even visible?
Our team at Newcastle University is developing this technology, and we’re looking for a passionate PhD student to join us. This is a fully-funded project that sits at the exciting intersection of biology, engineering, and real-world patient impact.
Skin cancer is one of the UK’s most common cancers. We’re tackling this by pioneering a gentle, minimally invasive technique that collects molecular information from beneath the skin’s surface. This ‘microsampling’ approach could one day make community screening for skin cancer a simple and accessible reality.
You will be at the heart of this innovation, working to optimise the technique, discover key biomarkers, and test its use in a clinical setting.
This project is a close collaboration with Professor Mark Birch-Machin (Professor of Molecular Dermatology), Dr Andrew Porter of the Newcastle University Protein and Proteome Analysis (NUPPA) facility, and Dr Samantha Hills (Clinical Director at Lynton, the UK’s largest manufacturer of aesthetic, surgical and conservation lasers).
This isn’t a standard lab-based PhD. It’s a prestigious MRC DiMeN iCASE studentship, which means you’ll be co-developing this technology with our industrial partner, Lynton.
Your experience will include:
We’re looking for a curious and motivated student with a background in life sciences or biomedical engineering. If you’re driven by the prospect of seeing your work directly improve patient lives and want a PhD that prepares you for a career at the cutting edge of health tech, we want to hear from you.
Find all the details and apply via the official advertisement on FindAPhD.com and DiMeN website. Apply by 4 December 2025, 1 pm (GMT). Enquiries welcome.
Please share this with anyone in your network who might be the perfect fit for this project!
Rach Dixon (soon to be Dr Dixon officially) successfully defended her PhD thesis. The title of her thesis was Development of a Minimally Invasive Microneedle Immunosensor to Detect Biomarkers in the Skin.
Congratulations, Rach!
Rach’s work has brought many firsts to our group, including a new microfabrication technique and a new signal detection platform. It’s been a pleasure working with her and we are utterly delighted for her success.
The examiners were Dr Al Edwards (University of Southampton) and Dr Neil Keegan (Newcastle University). The examination was chaired by Professor Sarah Slight. We thank them for conducting a smooth PhD examination. Thanks also to the administrative staff involved in organising it.
Here’s everyone beaming after the examination:
Bohan Zhou, who spent several weeks as a research intern in our lab last year, has rejoined us to study a PhD in microneedle biosensing. We have a very interesting project lined up. Welcome back, Bohan!
We’re pleased to announce that a PhD studentship is now available in our laboratory and open for applications. The PhD studentship, generously funded by the EPSRC, will fund the tuition fees, living expenses (stipend) and research support (e.g. consumables) for one PhD student for 3.5 years. The student will work under the guidance of Keng, Wing and Katarina to develop a microimplant for drug delivery.
Interested candidates should apply online by following any one of the links below, which also contain full details of the studentship:
Informal enquiries should be directed to keng.ng@newcastle.ac.uk.
If you know anyone to whom this may be of interest, please forward this on.
An EPSRC-funded PhD studentship is now open for application. The successful candidate will join a multi-disciplinary team to develop a microneedle device to assess nerve function in diabetes.
The project will be led by Dr Roger Whittaker (Institute of Neuroscience), and co-supervised by Professor Anthony O’Neill (School of Engineering) and myself (School of Pharmacy).
Closing date: 5 June 2019.
Full details here.
We are now accepting applications for a funded PhD studentship in rapid disease diagnosis.
If you have read about our microneedle technology, and think that it is an area of research you would like to engage in and gain a PhD in the process, then please see the link below for eligibility and how to apply: