Neel Desai

Neel graduated with a First Class Honours MPharm degree from University College London (UCL) in 2017, whilst also being awarded a place on the Dean’s List.  During his undergraduate years, he conducted his three-month dissertation at the University of Hong Kong, under the supervision of Dr. Philip Kwok, examining the effects of co-solvents on electronic cigarette aerosol droplet distribution. Neel then successfully completed his pre-registration training year at North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust, joining the General Pharmaceutical Council list of registered pharmacists in August 2018.  Neel returned to UCL School of Pharmacy in October 2018, joining the CDT in Advanced Therapeutics and Nanomedicines. During his training year, Neel undertook a three-month project assessing the intestinal membrane permeability of Nicotinamide Riboside and related compounds under the supervision of Dr Mine Orlu and a further three-month project in Pfizer, Sandwich.

PhD Project Title: Patient and Big Data InforMed Project Design for Age-Appropriate Oral Dosing (MedAge-App)

Supervisor: Dr Mine Orlu

Project description: Neel’s PhD aims to enhance our understanding of paediatric acceptability of dosage formulations by utilising digital healthcare technologies/tools and ‘big data’ to enable real-time, well informed responses that can improve drug product design. The current working research aims of Neel’s project include: i) systematic collection of ‘big data’ to improve accuracy of acceptability profiles; ii) validation of collected acceptability data; iii) utilisation of validated data to inform drug product design. Exploration of end-user acceptability of dosage forms for delivery of medicines is critical, especially in the paediatric population, where significant challenges are faced in recruitment for clinical trials.