UK: International PhD Scholarship

Reference No INT-063Elhissi

Applications are invited for a full-time scholarship available in the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences. The scholarship is tenable for up to 3 years for a PhD (via MPhil route) [subject to satisfactory progress] and is open to international applicants only.  UK/EU applicants are not eligible to apply. The scholarship will provide £15000 towards the cost of the International tuition fee over 3 years.

Project Title:
Transferosome Formulations for Anticancer therapy

Project Description:
In the UK, approximately 7000 people per year are diagnosed with brain cancer, making it about the 10th most common type of cancer in men and the 13th in women. Brain cancer mortalities in children exceed those of leukaemia making it the second highest cause of death. In spite of this, research in this area has not received the attention it merits. Brain tumours differ from most other cancers by their diffusion infiltration of the surrounding normal brain tissue, resulting in complete resection of the tumour by surgery being rarely successful. Consequently, future developments in treatment strategies are likely to be systematic in nature. However, at the present time chemotherapy is very unpredictable with large variation in drug sensitivity demonstrated between individuals.

We have recently shown that liposomes generated from prolipsomes are effective in suppression of glioma cancers. Ultradeformable liposomes, also called transferosomes, are stress responsive phospholipid vesicles that demonstrated a marked success in transdermal drug delivery. To our best knowledge transferosomes have not been investigated for cancer therapy of glioma. The proposed project will be based on the development of novel transfersome-based nanotechnologies. Several techniques will be employed in the project including:

1. Formulation of transferosomes using a range of technologies.
2. Freeze-drying, spray-drying or spray freeze-drying.
3. Size analysis using laser diffraction and photon correlation spectroscopy.
4. Liposome size reduction using extrusion and/or sonication techniques.
5. Particle surface charge analysis.
6. Performing encapsulation studies.
7. High sensitivity DSC (to investigate how liposme-siRNA interact with model biological membrane).
8. In vitro analysis of the siRNA on glioma cell lines.
9. Microscopic techniques such as confocal microscopy.

Applicants should have, or expect to receive a qualification equivalent to a high class UK honours degree.

Informal project related enquiries may be directed to Dr Abdelbary Elhissi mail aelhissi@uclan.ac.uk Tel 01772 895807

Application Forms can be found at: www.uclan.ac.uk/studentships

Completed application forms should be emailed to researchdegrees@uclan.ac.uk

The closing date for applications to the Graduate Research Office:
Friday 13 May 2011 5pm British Summer Time

Proposed Interview Date: 1 June 2011