Summer Studentship 2022
Externally-funded Vacation Scholarships
Staff in the School of Pharmacy are offering a number of funded Summer Studentships which will provide students with an excellent opportunity to undertake a research project in one of our research groups.
Students will be paid a student stipend of ~£200-250 per week for an 8-10 week period during the summer and will work Monday to Friday on a full-time basis.
Applications are welcome from students in the 2nd or 3rd year of their degree in a relevant discipline such as Pharmacy, Medicine, Dentistry, Biomedical/Biological Sciences.
In addition to the projects funded by staff in the School, externally funded summer studentships may also be available. Students apply, together with a supervisor of their choice, to one of a number of external funding bodies. Success is dependent upon the quality of the proposed project, but also upon University examination results obtained to date.
Academic staff in the School have proposed a number of different projects listed below. If you are interested in any of these projects, can you please e-mail Mrs Sinead McCullough (sinead.mccullough@qub.ac.uk) by 12 noon Friday 4thFebruary 2022. The top 2 ranked candidates, based on academic performance to date, will be awarded funded Studentships. Additional candidates will be allocated to remaining projects and will work with academic staff to submit an application to an external funding body.
Yours sincerely
Michael
Michael Tunney
Professor of Clinical Pharmacy
School of Pharmacy
Queen's University Belfast
97 Lisburn Road
Belfast BT9 7BL
Microneedle delivery of the anti-psychotic medicine haloperidol decanoate
Description: In this project, the student will use tiny arrays of needles, termed microneedles, to deliver the anti-psychotic medicine, haloperidol decanoate, across the skin. Dissolving microneedle arrays penetrate the stratum corneum and can deposit medicines in the tissues just below the skin surface. Haloperidol decanoate can be given as a depot intramuscular injection which provides slow and sustained release of the active haloperidol, for up to 1 month. However, this is associated with significant pain and discomfort for the patient. Microneedle-mediated transdermal delivery of haloperidol decanoate is an alternative that could provide the opportunity for patients to painlessly self-apply a patch, instead of receiving a painful oily injection. The microneedles penetrate the outer layers of the skin and facilitate delivery of a bolus dose of haloperidol decanoate. Esterases present in the blood can hydrolyse haloperidol decanoate, releasing the active haloperidol into the systemic circulation, where it can have a therapeutic effect. The aim of the project will be to design and optimise a dissolving microneedle array for the delivery of haloperidol decanoate, using laboratory based analytical techniques and approved tests for needle insertion and drug permeation.
Funding: Funding is already in place for this project.
Supervisor: Professor Ryan Donnelly
Email: r.donnelly@qub.ac.uk
3D Printing of personalised medicines
Description: The manufacturing processes of dosage forms used by the pharmaceutical industry are designed for large-scale productions. However, the most available products contain limited doses of APIs, which are not adequate for specific groups, such as paediatrics and geriatrics, and may also result in health risks. 3D printing is an emerging manufacturing technology that is gaining acceptance in the pharmaceutical industry to overcome traditional mass production and move toward personalized pharmacotherapy. The 3D printers allow the production of a medicine according to digital information on-demand and easily to be adapted to the specific needs of patients, including animal shape medications for paediatric or geriatric applications.
Funding: Funding is already in place. Our lab has been recognised as world leaders in Printing, with PubMed-based algorithms placing us in the top 0.1% of scholars in the world writing about Printing.
Supervisor: Dimitrios Lamprou, https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/dimitrios-lamprou
Email: d.lamprou@qub.ac.uk
Investigating the role of the clinical microbiome and antimicrobial resistance profile in disease and infection
Description: Many infections and disease states are closely linked to associated microbiomes, either of the patient themselves or the surrounding clinical environment. This project will seek to investigate these links through a number of comparative studies, focusing on bacterial populations and antimicrobial resistance profiles. The successful candidate will be joining a welcoming and dynamic team for the summer, and will receive training in microbiology and molecular biology, as well as antimicrobial susceptibility testing and basic DNA sequence analysis skills.
Supervisor: Dr Stephen Kelly
Email: stephen.kelly@qub.ac.uk
Funding: Funding will be sought from the Society for Applied Microbiology for this studentship.
Discovery of new antibiotics from ancient halite deposits 400 m below the Earth’s crust
Description: The rise of superbugs such as MRSA pose an immediate threat to our healthcare and there is a desperate need for new and effective antibiotics. We argue that bioprospecting from underexplored habitats represents a largely untapped repository of compounds with unique and distinct chemical diversity. The successful candidate will search for novel antimicrobials and will have the opportunity to learn about natural product chemistry, genome mining, and extremophile microbiology. The project will use both classical antimicrobial screenings tests and modern bioinformatics tools to exploit the potential of both metagenomic DNA and microbes from extreme environments. No prior experience is required and will be of interest to students curious about drug discovery.
Supervisor: Prof Brendan Gilmore & Dr Thomas Thompson
Email: b.gilmore@qub.ac.uk
Funding: Funding will be sought from the Society for Applied Microbiology for this studentship.
Developing implantable devices for sustained drug delivery using 3D-printing technologies
Project Description: Implantable drug delivery devices offer many advantages over other routes of drug delivery. Most significantly, the delivery of lower doses of drug, thus, potentially reducing side-effects and improving patient compliance. 3D-printing is a flexible technique, which has been subject to increasing interest in the past few years, especially in medical devices. This summer research project will be focused on the use of 3D printing as a tool to manufacture implantable drug delivery devices. To see examples of this type of implants please have a look at this webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLHl-nPMsGw&t=3316s&ab_channel=QUBSchoolofPharmacy
Supervisor: Dr Eneko Larrañeta
Email: e.larraneta@qub.ac.uk
Funding: Funding will be sought from an external body for this studentship.
Endolysins of Cutibacterium acnes phages as a potential acne treatment
Description: Cutibacterium acnes, formerly known as Propionibacterium acnes, is one of the most common constituents of the skin microbiome. Under certain conditions, such as hormonal or dietary changes, this Gram-positive commensal bacterium becomes more abundant, which results in skin inflammation and is thought to be one of the causes of acne vulgaris. Acne affects about 10% of the world population and can significantly decrease the quality of life of the affected person. Serious cases of acne are treated with long-term topical and systemic antibiotic treatment regimens, which not only contributes to the development of antimicrobial resistance, but also disrupts normal microbial consortia. An alternative approach would be to use endolysins — lytic enzymes produced by bacterial viruses (bacteriophages). Several endolysin-based preparations (e.g. against Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosaand Gardnerella vaginalis) are in different stages of clinical trials and/or are marketed as cosmetic and personal hygiene products, demonstrating their recognised potential as efficient and precise therapeutic agents. In this project a student will be producing and testing an endolysin from a C. acnes phage against C. acnes in vitro. This project offers a unique opportunity to learn a combination of bioinformatics, molecular biology and microbiology skills, while contributing to the development of a new acne treatment approach.
Supervisor: Dr Timofey Skvortsov
Email: t.skvortsov@qub.ac.uk
Funding: Funding will be sought from either Society for Applied Microbiology (deadline 14 Feb) or Microbiology Society Harry Smith Vacation Studentship (deadline 20 Feb).