PhD Research Project

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New NMR tools for impurity analysis

Institution:

University of Manchester

Dept/School/Faculty:

School of Chemistry

PhD Supervisor:

Prof GA Morris

Co-Supervisor:

Dr M Nilsson

Application Deadline:

No more applications being accepted

Funding Availability:

Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)

PhD Research Project

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A PhD studentship, supervised by Dr Mathias Nilsson and Professor Gareth Morris and jointly funded by AstraZeneca and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under the Industrial CASE scheme, is available from September 2012. The project involves the development of new and improved NMR methods for detecting and characterising low-level impurities in pharmaceutical products and intermediates. The development of new drugs and of the processes needed to manufacture them poses some uniquely challenging analytical problems. Regulatory approval requires not only that the chemistry of a new drug be fully understood, but also the chemistry of any impurities present in it, down to the 0.1% level. At present it requires exhaustive separation and purification to identify many impurities, partly because powerful techniques such as NMR spectroscopy are mostly geared to working with pure compounds. In recent years new techniques have made NMR increasingly powerful as a method for studying mixtures directly, without prior separation of their constituents. There remains, though, the problem of dynamic range: it is much more difficult to identify an unknown impurity if it is mixed with a hundred or a thousand times the concentration of the parent species. This project sets out to develop methods for structure analysis in intact mixtures that are robust even at high dynamic range, and will involve a range of experimental and data processing techniques including pure shift NMR (Angew. Chemie Int. Ed. 49, 3901 and 50, 9716) and diffusion-ordered spectroscopy (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 133, 7640). It offers an excellent opportunity to build a skill-set tailored both to NMR research and to the analytical needs of the pharmaceutical industry.

Applicants should or expect to receive, either a good Honours degree (First or Upper Second) or a postgraduate Masters in Chemistry, Physics or a related subject.

Formal applications should be submitted online at http://www.manchester.ac.uk/postgraduate/howtoapply/.

Informal enquiries may be made to Professor Morris (email g.a.morris@manchester.ac.uk).

The University of Manchester is the largest university in the UK, and has more Nobel laureates on its staff than any other; it is ranked 6th in Europe in the Shanghai Jiao Tong ratings. The School of Chemistry has internationally-competitive facilities, including 10 NMR spectrometers, and offers an excellent environment for research. Further information on the NMR methodology research group can be found at http://nmr.chemistry.manchester.ac.uk.

Funding Notes:

EPSRC CASE Award. Funding is for 3.5 years and will cover tuition fees and maintenance of at least £13,590 for 2012/13. Eligibility is restricted to UK/EU candidates who have been resident in the UK for three years.