Sabiruddin Mirza

Nanomaterials for advanced drug delivery

Nanomaterials such as nanoparticles, nanocapsules, micelles, micro/nanoemulsions, liposomes, polymersomes and nanoporous materials are very promising tools that are capable to change the way certain devastating diseases - including cancer - are being treated. The successful development of a drug delivery system based on the nanostructures strongly depends on the ability to control stability and properties of these colloidal species in self-assembling and structured media. I focus my research on adapting microfluidic technology for creating a library of nanoparticulate drug delivery systems for both small molecules and biotherapeutics.

Microfluidic fabrication of drug nanocrystals and nanococrystals

Nanosizing is an advanced formulation technique for poorly water soluble drugs that enables to enhance their dissolution rate and oral bioavailability. The in vivo performance of such nanoformulations strongly depends on size and size distribution of the drug particles. Microfluidics is an attractive technique for nanocrystal synthesis due to its ability to precisely control the reaction environment to produce material with required quality attributes, including size and size distribution. In this context, I aim to develop the microfluidics-based platform for robust fabrication of drug nanocrystals and nanococrystals.

Microfluidic screening in drug discovery and development

Microfluidics allow one to overcome major limitations associated with the traditional screening technologies, while enabling screening of extensive sets of experimental conditions with sub-nanolitre volumes in a more controllable way. Therefore, this project aims to develop microfluidic platforms for (i) pharmaceutical cocrystals screening, (ii) drug cytotoxicity screens, and (iii) formulation screening at the early stage of development.