our scientific board keeps us in the vanguard of technology - and you too....

The members of the Scientific Advisory Board board are renowned experts in the field of pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical product development. At any given time, this scientific body of excellence enables Synectix to:

1. discuss key issues with renowned international scientists
2. get early access to current scientific findings
3. retain excellently trained specialists in the company

Synectix's Scientific Advisory Board has the following members:

Dr Abdul Basit BPharm, PhD, MRPharmS
Senior Lecturer, Department of Pharmaceutics
The School of Pharmacy, London

Dr Abdul Basit holds the position of Senior Lecturer in Pharmaceutics at the School of Pharmacy, University of London. He is also a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Chile. He further holds an Honorary Lectureship in Gastroenterology at the Wingate Institute of Neurogastroenterology, Queen Mary College, University of London. Dr Basit read Pharmacy at the University of Bath and graduated in 1993 with first class honours. Following a short period with Pfizer in the UK, he undertook post-graduate studies in Pharmaceutics at the School of Pharmacy, University of London and was awarded a PhD in 1999. In recognition of his research achievements Dr. Basit was the recipient of the 2004 Young Investigator Award in Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology from the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS). He is the first scientist based outside of North America to receive this award.

Research interests:

Dr Basit's research sits at the interface between pharmaceutical science and gastroenterology and is focused on oral drug delivery. This encompasses fundamental studies on gastrointestinal physiology through formulation and modified release issues to the clinical evaluation of dosage forms using gamma scintigraphy. He is particularly interested in modulating gastrointestinal transit and membrane permeability through physiological and pharmaceutical means, as well as establishing the potential of the colon as a site for drug delivery, metabolism and absorption. To this end he has been involved in the conceptualisation and development of an amylose-based technology for colonic delivery (COLAL™). This is the first universal bacteria-sensitive colon-specific drug delivery system to have successfully completed phase II clinical trials. A pan-European phase III clinical trial in ulcerative colitis patients is now underway. Dr. Basit leads a research group of 12 PhD students and post-doctoral fellows and has a number of papers, book chapters, abstracts and patents to his name. Dr Basit sits on the Editorial Advisory Board of a number of scientific journals including The Open Drug Delivery Journal and Recent Patents on Drug Delivery and Formulation. He is a frequent speaker at international conferences and is a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry. To date Dr. Basit has attracted close to £1.5 million in grant income from a variety of funding bodies, including research councils, charitable organisations and industrial concerns.

Dr Simon Gaisford BSc, MSc, PhD, MRSC, CChem, ILTM
Senior Lecturer, Department of Pharmaceutics
The School of Pharmacy, London

Dr Gaisford is a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC) and is actively involved in its subject groups. Having held a number of roles on the committee of the Thermal Methods Group (www.thermalmethodsgroup.org.uk), he was elected as Vice Chairman in April 2007 and will be Chairman in 2008-2009. This prestigious post means he will be at the centre of the thermal analysis and calorimetry community in the UK and will be heavily involved in the organisation of the group's annual conferences. In 2006 Dr Gaisford won the Sunner Memorial award, which recognises significant achievements by young scientists in the field of calorimetry. Subsequently, Dr Gaisford was elected to the Board of Directors of the US Calorimetry Conference for a three-year term. In the past three years, Dr Gaisford has delivered a number of international lectures and seminars at events in Brazil, Greece, US, Hungary, Iceland and the UK.

Dr Gaisford studied at the University of Kent at Canterbury and was awarded his PhD in 1997 under the supervision of Professor Anthony Beezer. His PhD programme was sponsored by Bristol-Myers Squibb and involved the application of calorimetric methods to the detection and quantification of stability in pharmaceuticals. He was subsequently appointed as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The School of Pharmacy, working first for Professor Duncan Craig (understanding the mode of action of a paediatric drug delivery system in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline) and then with Professor Graham Buckton (using thermal methods to understand the mode of action of a novel range of hydrogel drug delivery systems in collaboration with CeNeS).

In 2000 he was appointed as a Lecturer in Pharmaceutical Science at the University of Huddersfield and Head of the Thornton and Ross Pharmaceutical Formulation Research Unit (also based at the University of Huddersfield). In this role he helped establish the teaching of pharmaceutics in the University and fostered a close relationship between the University and Thornton and Ross (a local manufacturer of pharmaceuticals), helping to reformulate existing products and to develop new formulations. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2002.

In 2003 Dr Gaisford returned to The School of Pharmacy as a Lecturer in Pharmaceutics. His research group is involved in a broad spectrum of activities; developing new calorimetric technology; characterising the amorphous state and quantifying small amorphous contents; monitoring bioprocesses by calorimetry; and working to interpret and analyse complexity in pharmaceutical systems.

Research interests:

Dr. Gaisford's research interests lie primarily in the development of new calorimetric techniques and analysis methodologies and their application to pharmaceutical materials characterisation and formulation development. One of the overarching aims of the research is to be able to assess the long-term stability of a pharmaceutical (years) through short-term experimental measurement (hours), obviating the need for classical long-term stability trials. He has worked on several methods to achieve this, from the use of models based on reaction kinetics to chemometric analysis. Projects are run in collaboration with a number of supporting partners, including GlaxoSmithKline, Astra-Zeneca and Barts and the Royal London Hospital.

GlaxoSmithKline is currently funding the development of a photocalorimeter in order to study photostability of drugs. This is a very understudied area and no commercial photocalorimeters exist, so the project has required the development of a prototype, as pictured. The project has been very successful and GlaxoSmithKline will be funding a further project from 2007-2010. The current focus of the work is to validate the performance of the instrument using a number of chemical test reactions (such as the photodegradation of 2-nitrobenzaldehyde) and then to assess the photostablity of a number of model drug compounds. The ultimate aim is to provide instrumentation that will allow the routine screening of APIs for photostability.

The final main research area lies in understanding the roles of amorphous material in pharmaceuticals; this can encompass products that are entirely amorphous (such as solid-amorphous dispersions) as well as those that are partially amorphous (such as processed materials). The laboratory offers a range of techniques to characterise and quantify amorphous material, including gas-perfusion calorimetry and solution calorimetry, and work is often undertaken on behalf of industrial partners.

Dr Mike O'Neill BSc, PhD
Teaching Fellow
The School of Pharmacy, Bath

Dr O’Neill is a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC) and is actively involved in its subject groups. He has assumed recently the role of Honorary Treasurer of the Thermal Methods Group (www.thermalmethodsgroup.org.uk), previously serving on the committee. In this role he will continue to have an active role in the promotion and advancement of thermal analysis in the UK. In 2006 Dr O’Neill was awarded the Cyril Keattch Young Scientist award, in recognition of his contributions in the thermal analysis and calorimetry arena. Dr O’Neill is an active participant in the national and international conference circuit having delivered a number of invited and submitted lectures and seminars to a variety of audiences.

Dr O’Neill studied at the University of Greenwich and was awarded his PhD in 2002 under the supervision of Professors Anthony Beezer, John Mitchell and John Orchard. His research followed the general theme of developing calorimetric methods for the quantitative analysis of complex biological systems. Following his PhD studies Dr. O’Neill was appointed to a postdoctoral research position at the University of Greenwich (sponsored by Pfizer Global Research) to investigate the potential for calorimetry to return quantitative thermodynamic and kinetic information from complex pharmaceutical systems. Subsequent to this collaboration he moved to the University of London School of Pharmacy to take a postdoctoral position first with Professor Hadgraft developing a novel means for investigating the effect of light on biological membranes and finally with Professor Graham Buckton and Dr Simon Gaisford where he helped to initiate a new distance learning MSc in pharmaceutical science.

In September 2006 he was appointed as a Teaching Fellow at the University of Bath where he continues to apply calorimetry to a variety of systems. Current research, in collaboration with Dr Simon Gaisford and Professor Tony Beeezer, includes calorimetric methods for monitoring bioprocesses, novel methodologies for analysing complex calorimetric data and characterising armorphous materials. More recently, in collaboration with Dr. Robert Price and Dr. Simon Gaisford, he has initiated a new research avenue specifically aimed at correlating measurements of bulk properties by calorimetry with specific surface measurements by AFM.

Research interests:

Dr O’Neill’s research covers a number of areas but fundamentally returns, in all cases, to the development of novel approaches for the elucidation of fundamental physicochemical parameters for the prediction of long term behaviour and physical properties of complex systems. In particular he focuses on pharmaceutical materials characterisation and biological systems. He employs various methodologies to help address the challenges that this field of research entails. Such methods include utilisation of classical kinetic models, direct model-free analyses and, more recently, chemometric data analysis. In particular, the use of chemometric software to analyse complex calorimetric data has shown great promise, and we are collaborating with a software company from the University of Greenwich (DiKnow Ltd) to develop a ubiquitous and usable chemometric software package.

He is also an active participant in a number of projects whose goal is to improve or develop new technologies for the study of complex systems. Current projects include the development of an apparatus, funded by GSK, to allow controlled delivery of light (both white light and of specific wavelength) such that measurement of any associated change can be measured in real time and without the need to manipulate the sample in any way. More recently a collaborative venture has been initiated with Bristol Myers Squibb, University of London and the University of Greenwich to investigate the feasibility of using isothermal calorimetry for the rapid detection and quantification and kill efficiency of micro-organisms in pharmaceutically relevant systems. Earlier research by us, in this area, has sparked interest from a further industrial sponsor who wishes to collaborate with us to investigate whether their calorimetric technology can be used for similar studies. As a result of continued interest in this area approval has recently been given to apply for funding for a project designed to investigate soil quality through its microbial load. In addition to the studies noted above I am also involved in a collaborative project that has direct clinical benefit. This project entails the use of isothermal calorimetry to screen intravenous admixtures to ensure there are no potential incompatibilities between the active components.

Dr Paul Royall BSc, PhD, MRSC, ILTM
Lecturer
Department of Pharmaceutics, King's College London

Research Career

• • 2005- Lecturer in Pharmaceutics CAP UEA
• • 2000-2005 Lecturer in Pharmaceutics in the Department of Pharmacy at King’s College London & Business fellow for the London Technology Network
• • 1999 to 2000 Postdoctoral researcher at The School of Pharmacy, The Queen’s University of Belfast.
• • 1996 to 1999 Postdoctoral researcher at The School of Pharmacy, University of London.
• • Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry and B.Sc. (Hons) in Chemsitry at the University of Kent at Canterbury, (UKC
• • Committee member and marketing & advertising officer for the Thermal Methods Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Membership of the Academic Pharmacy Group, Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain and the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. Member of the editorial boards for the Journal of Pharmacy & Pharmacology and Thermochimica Acta.

Research Mission

To discover the fundamental relationship between structure and activity for the amorphous state in modern pharmaceuticals. To develop novel forms of thermal analysis.

Current Research

The development and application of thermal analysis and calorimetry within pharmaceutical research. Prior to the formulation of a drug into a dosage form it is of vital importance to ensure the physical stability of the drug and its compatibility with potential excipients. Changes of phase and degradation are accompanied by heat flow or a change in heat capacity. Therefore, thermal analysis and more specifically calorimetry play a major part in the development of new drugs, formulations and drug delivery systems. Novel means of thermal analysis are currently under development, with a particular view to understanding the amorphous state.

The amorphous form of a drug typically has a higher bio-availability compared to it's crystalline analogue. However, amorphous materials will easily re-crystallise unless appropriate storage conditions are not maintained. Amorphous matrices are used in the stabilisation of protein and peptide formulations. Furthermore, particle size reduction processes commonly introduce small amorphous domains that have a disproportional effect on physical stability. Therefore, recent research has tackled the problems of characterising amorphous and semi-amorphous materials. This has led to considerable expertise in the use and application of;

• • Dynamic Mechanical Analysis
• • Modulated temperature differential scanning calorimetry
• • Differential scanning calorimetry
• • Thermogravimetric analysis
• • Micro-thermal analysis (a development of atomic force microscopy)
• • Solution calorimetry

Additional interests

• • The investigation of molecular diffusion using Taylor-Aris dispersion.
• • Applying atomic force microscopy to pharmaceutical materials analysis.