University Doctoral Studentships

City University London is continuing its investment in academic excellence by offering up to 75 fully-funded, full-time, 3-year Doctoral Studentships commencing in October 2011.

Each University Doctoral Studentship provides:

* An annual bursary (£15,000 for 2011/12, expected to rise in line with inflation in subsequent years)
* A full tuition fee waiver
* A one-off allowance of £1,000. This may be used across the three-year period to cover the cost of attending conferences, purchasing equipment or other activity in support of the research.

Continuation Awards:

Continuation of the award after the first year is subject to confirmation from the relevant School of satisfactory progress by the student. Recipients will usually be expected to undertake some form of teaching support activity in their second and third years as part of the bursary arrangements, by agreement with the School concerned. Support for the development of research skills is also provided.

Eligibility Details:

University Doctoral Studentships are available to:

* Both UK/EU and overseas fee-paying students
* New applicants who will be studying full-time

Research proposals are assessed on their research excellence or demonstrable potential, and the quality of the research proposal. Potential doctoral candidates are encouraged to discuss their proposal with the relevant staff member at the School to determine whether their research project can be accommodated.

Application Deadline:
Application Deadline is January 31, 2011

Further Details:
For further information about this scholarship visit below link.

http://www.city.ac.uk/research/resdegrees/studentships.html

Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Santiago, Lima, Quito,
Guayaquil, La Paz, Sucre, Asuncion, Brasilia, Salvador, Cayenne

PhD position: Process Engineering of Pharmaceutical Production Processes, scholarships essays

PhD position: Process Engineering of Pharmaceutical Production Processes, scholarships essays

This PhD project aims at developing mechanistic (and also empirical) process models for innovative pharmaceutical production processes (e.g., continuous processing, hot-melt extrusion, freeze-drying,…), and to exploit those models in the development of advanced process control systems. The research will be conducted in close cooperation with pharmaceutical companies. Research results will be published in important scientific journals.

Pharmaceutical companies can only release drug products (e.g., tablets, capsules, …) when the product quality is guaranteed. Since the publication of the Process Analytical Technology guidance by the FDA (2004), product quality should be built into the drugs already during production process design. During manufacturing, several pharmaceutical raw materials (i.e., active drug compounds and excipients) are processed by several consecutive process steps or process phases, leading to a final product formulation with the predefined quality. Currently, pharmaceutical production processes are developed by empirically testing how the process and input material variables affect the product quality parameters. Herewith, end product quality is mainly determined off-line and after processing.

However, there is a huge need within pharmaceutical industries to implement in-line and real-time quality control systems and to obtain detailed knowledge on how all raw materials behave during processing. Therefore, theoretical/physical/phenomenological modeling of the production processes is required and advanced control systems are to be implemented. The mechanistic process models should help to increase process understanding (processes should not be a black box) and to simulate processes. Process simulations should allow predicting the input material behavior during processing and should contribute significantly to guaranteeing the end product quality. Furthermore, the developed models should help to determine how input material variability can be managed by the process without losing product quality. The ultimate goal is to develop processes that are continuously under control and hence allow real-time release.


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master’s degree in bio-engineering, engineering, mathematics, physics, chemistry. Candidates must have strong interest for mechanistic modeling and pharmaceutical engineering.

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The PhD projects will be guided by the PAT research group (Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ghent University, Prof. Dr. Thomas De Beer), the Process Engineering and Technology research group (Technical University of Denmark, Prof. Dr. Krist Gernaey) and the BIOMATH research group (Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Prof. Dr. Ingmar Nopens).

PAT research group (Ghent University) Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences Prof. Dr. T. De Beer Thomas.DeBeer@UGent.Be +32-496-498322

BIOMATH research group (Ghent University) Faculty of Bioscience Engineering Prof. Dr. I. Nopens Ingmar.Nopens@UGent.be +32-9-2645939

Process Engineering and Technology research group (Technical University of Denmark) Prof. Dr. K. Gernaey KVG@kt.dtu.dk +45 4525 29 70