College of Pharmacy
Twin Cities
The amorphous state of drugs, in light of its potential to confer superior biopharmaceutical properties, is of increasing interest to formulation scientists. This group's recent work, using dynamic dielectric spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction, has provided mechanistic insights into amorphous phase stability. The selection of a suitable polymer, optimization of drug loading, and preparation method, by imparting different mobility states to the amorphous material, influence the physical stability of the dispersion. Finally, the correlation between mobility and physical stability has been established in amorphous solid dispersions for a number of drug-polymer combinations.
The complexity of polymer-based solid dispersion formulations and the need for fundamental understanding of the molecular level interactions motivates computational modeling. There have already been many simulations of polymeric drug delivery applications. This research group is keen to utilize the understanding from simulation studies to supplement results from the experimental techniques.