Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Innovation

Research credentials

• The Bradford School of Pharmacy undertakes research in drug development in the broadest sense. The emphasis is on an integrated cross-discipline approach to drug development and delivery research
• 85% of the research activity of this group was judged to be of international quality and above in the 2008 Governmentled Research Assessment Exercise
• A key centre of excellence in pharmaceutical research, with a focus unique in university pharmacy/bioscience schools. This uniqueness within the sector is a primary research focus in finding novel experimental, computational and predictive approaches in drug product design and performance. This emphasis enables acceleration of the drug development process and contributes to bringing medicines to the market sooner
• Research is themed around molecular studies, simulation, analytics, materials, drug formulation and design
• Extensive collaborations are in place with industry, the NHS, a range of Government agencies and national and international academic institutions
• The experimental and computational themes are integrated to complement each other. Research consists of multidisciplinary programmes and these involve pharmacists, computational and materials scientists, analysts, chemists, biologists and engineers

Research areas:

Research is organised in several thematic areas that encompass our “molecules to man” philosophy of pharmaceutical research.

Medicinal Chemistry

The discovery of new drug substances from synthetic and natural sources with application to the treatment of infectious and neoplastic diseases. Projects involve drug synthesis, heterocyclic chemistry, chiral synthesis, green chemistry, natural product isolation and characterisation, prodrugs and structure-activity relationships.

Analytics

Biomedical, pharmaceutical and forensic analysis is being undertaken. Applications include mass spectrometry and multinuclear NMR of lipids and other bioactive compounds, vibrational spectroscopy to probe drugs, forensics, extremophiles and signatures of organic compounds and biomarkers related to cellular function. Research also covers the preclinical assessment of drugs.

Neuropharmacology

Research includes studies on the cell biology of nerve and cardiac cells, including from a bioengineering perspective; the psycho- and neuropathology of psychiatric conditions, in particular schizophrenia and cognitive disorders; and the study of brain cells, using electrophysiology, microdialysis and cell engineering techniques, to study migraine attacks and to develop strategies to minimise brain damage after stroke.

Computational and Molecular Pharmaceutics

• Molecular Pharmaceutics: Research into defining the processing and fate of drug molecules, along with optimising the formulation and design of dosage forms
• Simulation: Issues of drug delivery and materials design are being addressed in both solid-state and membrane simulation using quantum mechanics, dynamics and other computational chemistry approaches
• Materials: Research in polymorphism, chiral resolution and organic salts, and co-crystallisation is covered, and supra-molecular and crystal engineering is applied to the pharmaceutical material synthesis
• Drug Formulation Design: This research is focused on developing novel drug delivery and formulation systems to create new medicines through rational prediction of performance, based on powerful experimental, computational and artificial intelligence procedures
• Pharmacy Practice: The design and evaluation of novel Pharmacy services and developments, including the application of economic evaluation (a particular emphasis on service developments that demonstrate sustainability or reduce health inequality is encouraged)