Predicting Performance of Medicines: Disintegration and Dissolution of Pharmaceutical Tablets

药物（如片剂）的制造和工艺工程涉及一系列复杂的单独工艺，以产生最终的口服固体剂型（片剂或胶囊）。近年来，已经进行了大量的研究，以产生对这些过程的理解和预测建模，这些不断扩展的知识现在正在对行业内这些制造过程的设计、放大和故障排除产生真正的影响。然而，人们对这些产品制成后的表现仍然缺乏了解，特别是很难预测这些片剂将如何溶解和分解，从而将药物输送到体内。越来越多地需要设计药物以提供长时间的延长释放，这使问题进一步复杂化。本课题旨在深入研究片剂的溶出与崩解过程。学生将进行实验调查以发展对机理的理解，也将有可能应用计算方法来开发片剂性能的预测模型。

The manufacturing and process engineering of medicines such as tablets involves a complex sequence of individual processes, to generate the final oral solid dosage form (tablets or capsules). In recent years, much research has been conducted to generate understanding and predictive modelling for these processes, and this expanding knowledge is now making a real difference to the design, scale-up and troubleshooting of these manufacturing processes within the industry. However, there remains a lack of understanding of how these products perform after they are made, and in particular, it is difficult to predict how these tablets and will dissolve and disintegrate, to deliver medicines to the body. Increasingly, there is a need to engineer medicines to provide extended release over a long time, and this further complicates the problem.The aim of the research project is to study in depth the tablet dissolution and disintegration process. The student will conduct experimental investigations to develop mechanistic understanding, and there will also be potential to apply computational methods to develop predictive models for tablet performance.