Platform Nanotechnologies For Oral Delivery Of Drugs, Therapeutic Protein And Peptide Delivery
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$437,034.00
Summary
The development of reliable oral delivery systems for problem drugs and biologics is one of the biggest challenges faced by the pharmaceutical industry in recent times. In order to tackle these challenges, I have developed programmable nanoparticles capable of efficiently deliver wide range of drugs including large peptides and proteins orally.
Novel Prolonged-release Polymeric Microparticles For Relief Of Intractable Cancer-related Pain
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$796,950.00
Summary
For the 10-30% of patients with advanced cancer who experience intractable pain despite administration of large doses of morphine-like drugs by mouth or injection, more invasive dosing routes may be needed. This project will utilise innovative polymer chemistry to develop bioerodable prolonged-release polymer microparticles to deliver pain-killers into the spinal fluid near to the cells that mediate their actions, with a view to producing prolonged periods of analgesia in these patients.
Bioresponsive Nanocarriers For Controlled And Targeted Delivery To Efficiently Treat Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$316,449.00
Summary
Despite considerable progress in treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, current treatments suffer from many disadvantages such as side effects, lack of efficacy in many patients, and development of drug dependence. Using state of art nanotechnology, novel nanoparticles will be developed to enhance the delivery to the intestine and efficacy of Budesonide (an anti-inflammatory steroid). This research promises to find safer and more effective ways to treat these diseases.
Drugs are applied to the skin for the treatment of a wide range of conditions including both local (inflammation, pain, eczema, psoriasis) and systemic (angina, nicotine withdrawl, hormone replacement therapy) therapies. Unwanted skin absorption also occurs following exposure to environmental and occupational chemicals, including those applied deliberately to the skin such as insectisides, sunscreens and cosmetics. This study seeks to examine the relationship between the chemical structure of ag ....Drugs are applied to the skin for the treatment of a wide range of conditions including both local (inflammation, pain, eczema, psoriasis) and systemic (angina, nicotine withdrawl, hormone replacement therapy) therapies. Unwanted skin absorption also occurs following exposure to environmental and occupational chemicals, including those applied deliberately to the skin such as insectisides, sunscreens and cosmetics. This study seeks to examine the relationship between the chemical structure of agents, the types of formulations in which they are applied and their penetration into the various layers of the skin and underlying tissues. We intend to further our research into important areas relating to the ability to predict the likely behaviour of a solute which comes into contact with the skin from the aspect of optimising both topical drug delivery systems and risk assessment procedures. We will also be examining techniques of facilitating drug transport through the skin using (i) the knowledge gained of the mechanisms by which vehicles act on the skin, (ii) the synthesis of ester and amide lipophilic prodrugs and (iii) physical techniques such as iontophoresis, whereby small electrical currents are applied to charged drug species on the outside of the skin.Read moreRead less
Robust Reformulation Methods. Many decision problems in engineering, business and economics are modeled as nonlinear continuous optimization problems. Often these are made difficult by the existence of constraints. In this project, we reformulate such problems as constrained nonsmooth equations, rather than optimization problems, and develop generalized Newton and quasi-Newton methods for solving them. The expected outcomes of this project include a systematic theory of reformulation methods, ....Robust Reformulation Methods. Many decision problems in engineering, business and economics are modeled as nonlinear continuous optimization problems. Often these are made difficult by the existence of constraints. In this project, we reformulate such problems as constrained nonsmooth equations, rather than optimization problems, and develop generalized Newton and quasi-Newton methods for solving them. The expected outcomes of this project include a systematic theory of reformulation methods, and robust and efficient algorithms for solving some important nonlinear continuous optimization problems. There is high potential for applications in engineering, business and finance.Read moreRead less
Quadratic Support Function Technique to Solving Hard Global Nonconvex Optimization Problems. Optimization techniques are becoming increasingly beneficial to modern Australian society in areas such as manufacturing and commerce by improving technical and management decisions. The proposed research is expected to produce enhanced optimization techniques that can be applied to solve a wider range of important problems too complex to be currently solved. The proposed research also represents an inte ....Quadratic Support Function Technique to Solving Hard Global Nonconvex Optimization Problems. Optimization techniques are becoming increasingly beneficial to modern Australian society in areas such as manufacturing and commerce by improving technical and management decisions. The proposed research is expected to produce enhanced optimization techniques that can be applied to solve a wider range of important problems too complex to be currently solved. The proposed research also represents an international collaboration which will improve Australia's ability to participate effectively in international research and innovation and to produce globally competitive mathematical technologiesRead moreRead less
Continuous Optimization with Linear Matrix Inequality Constraints. The proposed research is expected to lead to new insights and new joint collaborative work for both Autralian and Korean partners. Joining forces of the two teams will ensure that a full range of techniques can be utilized to provide rapid successful research outcomes. The proposed collaboration will give better opportunity to increase the visibility of the work from Korea in Australia, and vice versa. One of the key national be ....Continuous Optimization with Linear Matrix Inequality Constraints. The proposed research is expected to lead to new insights and new joint collaborative work for both Autralian and Korean partners. Joining forces of the two teams will ensure that a full range of techniques can be utilized to provide rapid successful research outcomes. The proposed collaboration will give better opportunity to increase the visibility of the work from Korea in Australia, and vice versa. One of the key national benefits is that the proposed research collaboration will provide extremly fertile ground for training postdoctoral researchers and graduate students in one of the most applicable areas of mathematics.Read moreRead less
Faster, cheaper, better: mathematical advances for improved design and scheduling of robotic instrumentation. This project extends previous research addressing mathematical challenges in the optimal design and scheduling of robotic instrumentation. The Partner Organisation manufactures instruments for cancer diagnostics, and designs instruments that need to produce rapid, high-quality results, at a reasonable cost in a competitive market. It is intended that powerful new scheduling algorithms wi ....Faster, cheaper, better: mathematical advances for improved design and scheduling of robotic instrumentation. This project extends previous research addressing mathematical challenges in the optimal design and scheduling of robotic instrumentation. The Partner Organisation manufactures instruments for cancer diagnostics, and designs instruments that need to produce rapid, high-quality results, at a reasonable cost in a competitive market. It is intended that powerful new scheduling algorithms will be devised to handle their complex problem, which is more challenging than standard problems. The developed methodologies aim to reduce the product development cycle and boost the competitiveness of Australian manufacturers. In addition, new theoretical and algorithmic contributions aim to enable improved scheduling in other application areas.Read moreRead less
Necessary and sufficient conditions for global minimum in multi-extremal global continuous optimization. A basic understanding of the mechanisms for finding local "best" (optimal) solutions has been
achieved through optimization techniques. However, solving global optimization problems, where we may have many local optimal solutions which are not the "absolutely best" (global), is vital for many applications in industry & science, and is intrinsically difficult. The lack of verifiable condition ....Necessary and sufficient conditions for global minimum in multi-extremal global continuous optimization. A basic understanding of the mechanisms for finding local "best" (optimal) solutions has been
achieved through optimization techniques. However, solving global optimization problems, where we may have many local optimal solutions which are not the "absolutely best" (global), is vital for many applications in industry & science, and is intrinsically difficult. The lack of verifiable conditions for a global optimum is a serious limitation. This project will develop verifiable such global optimality conditions for many classes of these problems. A new methodology, functional abstract convexity, developed by CIs and has shown promising results, will be extended and applied for solving these problems.Read moreRead less