Name of Supervisor(s):

Jesus Frias, Sinead Ryan, Hugh Byrne and David Brayden

Funding Agency:

FIRM

Type of Award:

PhD

Project Title:

Translation of pharmaceutical drug delivery to nutraceutical delivery using in-vitro and in-vivo techniques

Project Description

A research team composed of researchers from DIT (Dr Sinead Ryan, Prof Hugh Byrne and Dr Jesus Frias) and UCD (Prof David Brayden) is seeking to recruit two postgraduate students to carry out Ph.D. studies under the project entitled “Translation of pharmaceutical drug delivery to nutraceutical delivery using in-vitro and in-vivo techniques”. This research project aims at building scientific knowledge to control the oral delivery of two bioactive tripeptides (one of dairy origin and one of meat origin) by protecting those nutraceuticals from digestion and promoting their permeability across the small intestine in nanoparticle formats.

The work will involve 1) development and characterisation new formulations using nanoparticles containing those peptides 2) in-vitro characterisation of the transport properties of the new formulations and 3) stability analysis of the new formulations 4) the in-vitro transport study of the peptide formulations using mammalian cell cultures 5) ex-vivo studies to assess delivery of the formulations in animal intestinal models and 6) In-vivo pharmacokinetic studies to build a ‘proof-of-concept’ of bioactive delivery. One of the posts is based at the School of Food Science and Environmental Health at DIT and one is based in the oral drug delivery laboratory at UCD. The DIT-based Ph.D. will work mainly on nanoparticle synthesis, characterisation and in vitro delivery, while the UCD-based one will work on nanoparticle interactions with intestinal tissue, high content toxicology and in vivo peptide delivery. The Ph.Ds will work as part of a multi-disciplinary cross-institutional team spending time in DIT and UCD according to project needs.

For Informal Enquiries on the post candidates should contact:

Name: Jesus Frias

Title: Dr

Email: Jesus.Frias@dit.ie

Telephone:   +353 1 4024459

Name: David Brayden

Title: Prof

Email: David.Brayden@ucd.ie

Telephone:   +353 1 7126013