Development of Solid-State NMR Methods for Application to Pharmaceutics

About the Project

Most pharmaceutical treatments, even most recently approved ones, are delivered as solid-state tablets. Thus, once candidate molecules have been identified by drug discovery, and before entering clinical trials, the pharmaceutical industry makes substantial investment in understanding the solid-state landscape. This encompasses different solid-state forms of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), such as polymorphs, hydrates, solvates, in both crystalline and amorphous states. Moreover, since tablet formulations are a mixture of the API and excipients, API-excipients interactions are important to characterize because of their impact on the stability of the formulation as well as importantly how dissolution occurs, with the latter importantly determining the bio-availability, i.e., the dose delivery and time release, of the API.

Solid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) using magic-angle spinning (MAS) is well suited for application in this research area. Notably, NMR probes the local chemical environment of the atomic nuclei. Thus, in not relying on long-range order, it is complementary to X-ray diffraction, and can be applied to amorphous as well as crystalline materials. Moreover, a strength of NMR is how the technique provides insight into dynamics across a wide range of timescales with atomic resolution, and is thus additional and complementary to microscopy. The power of applying MAS NMR is furthered by combining with density functional theory (DFT) calculations in the so-called NMR crystallography approach.

This project has at its focus the development of solid-state NMR that benefit from high magnetic field (up to 1.2 GHz) and fast MAS (up to 200 kHz) for application to pharmaceuticals and their formulations. The supervisor, Prof. Steven P. Brown has long-standing experience of collaborative research with the pharmaceutical industry, with co-authored publications with Astra Zeneca, Daiichi Sankyo, GlaxoSmithKIine and Pfizer.

A funded 3.5 year PhD studentship, in collaboration with Novartis, is available, starting in October 2026.

Eligibility

You must have or expect at least an upper second class BSc honours, MSci or MPhys or equivalent in Physics or related subject

For students whose first language is not English, we require a score of 6.5 in IELTS or equivalent, for further information please see English Language Information & Entry Requirements

How To Apply

For further information on how to apply please see our postgraduate webpage Postgraduate - Department of Physics

Funding Notes

The project will provide a full UK-standard annual tax-free stipend of £ 21,805 rising with inflation, plus allocations for conference travel and consumables.