CDT Summer School July 2018

The Centres for Doctoral Training in Advanced Therapeutics and Nanomedicines (UCL/University of Nottingham) and Complex Particulate Products and Processes (CP3, University of Leeds) met for four days focusing on presentation skills, team work, manufacturing processes and scientific leadership.

Group photo of the Summer School attendants outside the Vaughan Parry Williams Pavillion (Nottingham)

The summer school was kicked off in Leeds with a conference style event with students giving flash presentations on their work and showcasing their posters. Nottingham’s Rachael Xerri won the presentation prize for her talk on ‘Lipid liquid crystalline phase nanoparticles: hexasomes, taking shape in drug delivery’. Congratulations Rachael! The evening was concluded with a conference dinner.

The next day, all attendants made their way to Holme Pierrepont Water Sport Centre for an afternoon working together building rafts, testing them on the water and having fun canoeing. 

The third day of the summer school focused on industrial processes. A workshop was led and prepared by four CDT students, Sadie Swainson, Fabrizio Fina, Jonathan White and Lewis Scott, who discussed how their current procedures could be upscaled into an industrial setting and downscaled to lab sized experiments, respectively. Thank you so much for this brilliant workshop and also thank you to Pfizer who supported Fabrizio and Sadie!

The CDT would also like to thank our plenary speakers Drs Jon Aylott, Peter Scholes and Stefan Odrodzinski: Jon gave a personal overview on the pharmaceutical industry from the early 90th to nowadays with an outlook on the future. Peter Scholes spoke on ‘Industrial processes: Real time adaptive manufacture and process scale up’ with real examples from Quotient Sciences and Stefan discussed translating technology into IP with examples from his own companies and specifically Biostatus. This was complemented by a production and manufacturing related problem-solving workshop led by Drs Mischa Zelzer and Gareth Williams. The day was concluded with a 3 minute thesis competition, judged by the students and Stefan Orgrodzinski. Leeds’ Brendan Hall won both votes. 

The final day focused on leadership and coaching skills. Carol Steed and Christine Wilkinson from Nottingham’s Professional Development Team looked at leadership styles and provided training on successful leadership.

We really enjoyed the summer school!

The CDT would like to again thank everyone who took part in the activities.

Plenary speakers, left to right: Dr Jon Aylott discussing ‘A future perspective on Industrial processes’, Dr Peter Scholes (Quotient Sciences), and CDT Advisory Board member Stefan Ogrodzinski.