PhD with the School of Pharmacy

The first collaborative EPSRC CASE PhD studentship supervised jointly by Dr Ka-Wai Wan and latterly by Dr Gary Moss at the School of Pharmacy, together with Professor Jon Heylings, Chairman of the industrial partners in the project, Dermal Technology Laboratory Ltd, at Keele University Science Park, has just been completed.

The research project undertaken by Amy Judd, during the period 2009-2013, was aimed at improving the delivery of topically-applied antimicrobial drugs used to combat difficult hospital-acquired infections such as MRSA. The project involved novel imaging techniques to visualise nanoparticle-enhanced drug absorption through the skin.

The work resulted in a series of high calibre publications and a presentation of the research at The House of Commons to the Scientific Parliamentary Committee, in addition to other presentations at major International Dermatology conferences. Amy has recently passed her viva voce on this collaborative research between Pharmacy and DTL here at Keele University and the Laboratory of Biophysics and Surface Analysis at the University of Nottingham.

Dr Judd is now looking forward to moving to Adelaide, Australia, to undertake postdoctoral research at the prestigious Dermatology facility of Professor Michael Roberts at the University of South Australia. The School of Pharmacy and DTL look forward to continuing the collaborative research effort in the area of dermal absorption of pharmaceutical agents with further studentships in the coming years.