EPSRC MediForge Hub, Drug Product Research Associate

UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE; Glasgow; On-site; GBP 37,000 - 46,000

Job description

Organisation/Company: UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE

Research Field: Chemistry Engineering Physics

Researcher Profile: Recognised Researcher (R2), Established Researcher (R3)

Country: United Kingdom

Application Deadline: 31 Mar 2025 - 00:00 (UTC)

Type of Contract: Other

Job Status: Full-time

Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme? Not funded by a EU programme

Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Offer Description

Salary: £37,174 - £45,413
FTE: 1 (35 hours/week)
Contract: Fixed (Until 30/09/2028)
Closing Date: 31/03/2025

CMAC is a world leading medicines manufacturing research centre based in the Technology and Innovation Centre (TIC) at the University of Strathclyde. The centre works closely with leading pharmaceutical companies to transform the way that medicines are developed and made and support a portfolio of research programmes to deliver our shared vision.

Applications are invited for a Platform Research Associate to work in the EPSRC MediForge: Industry 5.0 Medicines Manufacturing Research Hub (www.cmac.ac.uk) being delivered by CMAC. The Hub comprises a multidisciplinary team of academics and researchers located across five leading UK Universities (Strathclyde, Leeds, Sheffield, Imperial College and Glasgow School of Art) providing a platform for collaborative research, training and knowledge exchange in the area of advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing. The MediForge Hub was awarded under EPSRC’s Manufacturing Hubs for A Sustainable Future (Round 2) call and aims to develop a systems level approach for predictive design of sustainable, resilient and human-centric future medicines manufacturing covering multiple stages across drug substance and drug product processing.

A key goal of Platform 1 is to deliver an integrated cyberphysical research infrastructure (CPRI) that connects comprehensive data generated from a suite of material sparing, self-driving DataFactory platforms for the target processing steps into a novel medicines manufacturing research data fabric. This will integrate with the end-to-end digital twin in Platform 2 to enable whole process design and optimisation for quality and sustainability. Designs will be evaluated from data generated by the MediForge MicroFactory Test Bed (Platform 3) spanning drug substance (synthesis, crystallisation, isolation) and drug product (feeding, blending, compaction) unit operations.

The Drug Product Research Associate post in Platform 1 reports to the Platform lead and will work closely with a multidisciplinary team of academics, PDRAs and PhDs. Within the multidisciplinary team, this post will be principally responsible for delivering the material-sparing, high-throughput drug product development platforms that identify optimal process parameters and formulation for sustainable, resilient drug product processes.

Working closely with the Automation Research Fellow, this post will integrate drug product process, characterisation and analytical techniques (e.g. HPLC) and product testing operations (e.g. fully automated dissolution testing, stability testing), optimisation frameworks and drug product models to develop predictive systems. The post holder will be responsible for undertaking original experimental research, reporting on project progress and the preparation and submission of research papers arising from these and related studies in the group.

The successful candidate will have a PhD in a relevant subject (chemical engineering, materials science, physics, pharmaceutical science, chemistry or a related discipline) with appropriate experience in drug product manufacturing and modelling. Familiarity with basic data science principles will also be beneficial; however, training will be provided.

Interviews are anticipated to be held in April 2025.