Fully-funded CASE PhD Studentship in Label–free Imaging for Studying Drug Delivery across Biophysical Barriers

Industry supervisor: Dr Diane Williamson

Drug delivery platforms are needed to target therapy to required locations and to improve its efficacy. However, key to developing and optimising such drug delivery vehicles is the ability to monitor, visualise and evaluate them on their performance across the biophysical barriers existing in vivo such as cell and organelle membranes, the blood-brain barrier and other specialised uptake and efflux mechanisms. Non-ionic surfactant vesicles (NISVs) are a promising platform technology that can be used to deliver a variety of drugs (both hydrophilic and hydrophobic) including anti-microbials. However, the tools for their evaluation both at the cell and the tissue level do not exist. Questions such as whether they remain intact on translocation across cells, their intracellular/tissue fate or the amount of drug deposited by them remain unanswered. Label-free techniques such as those based on Raman spectroscopy such as coherent Raman imaging and non-linear techniques including second harmonic imaging offer a non-invasive and non-destructive way of characterising and imaging NISVs and their therapeutic payload. In this project these approaches for intracellular and tissue imaging will be developed to answer questions exploring NISVs as viable drug delivery systems. Any success with achieving these goals will have wide-ranging impact as it will additionally be useful in development of drugs, drug delivery platforms and the treatment of infectious diseases as well as understanding pharmacological performance, for example, by the sensitive detection of other widely-used chemicals with essential therapeutic effects e.g. insulin, corticosteroids, synthetic hormones, chemotherapies.

The project is a part of an established interdisciplinary collaboration between the University of Southampton and Dstl. The student will join the Department of Chemistry at the University of Southampton with access to state-of-the-art facilities and laboratories and be part of a dynamic research group (http://www.southampton.ac.uk/chemistry/about/staff/sm13g12.page?). The student will have an excellent training opportunity at both the University of Southampton and Dstl. The student will spend a minimum of 3 months at Dstl Porton Down where they will have the opportunity to work with leading Dstl scientists working on in vivo and in vitro bio-imaging techniques. The Dstl facilities include Imaging flow cytometry, micro-Computerised Tomography and In Vivo Imaging System (IVIS). The student will benefit from exposure to a range of other capabilities at Dstl for the detection and identification of biologics/chemicals such as mass spectrometry, and sensor systems at the nano-, micro- and macro levels. Additionally the student will see the context in which these detection systems find application in bacteriology, virology, immunology and cell culture facilities.

Enthusiasm to work in a highly dynamic and interdisciplinary environment with a strong interest in analytical spectroscopy, novel microscopy and imaging techniques is highly desirable. The student can also expect to learn standard characterisation, multivariate statistics and image analysis techniques.