Microbubbles for Hydrophobic Drug Delivery and Enhanced Diagnostics; Towards Personalised Healthcare for the Treatment of Colorectal Cancer
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leeds
Department Name: Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer worldwide with over 800,000 new cases diagnosed each year, approximately 40,000 of these being in the UK. Once beyond the point at which it can be surgically removed the prognosis is poor and despite the new National Screening Programme there are ~16,000 deaths in England and Wales each year. Historically, chemotherapy has been relatively ineffective in advanced disease.
Occurrence of colorectal cancer is strongly related to age, with 83% of cases arising in people older than 60 years. It is anticipated that as our elderly population increases, CRC will increase in prevalence (National Institute for Clinical Excellence, www.nice.org.uk). This raises important questions relating to treatment in elderly patients balanced with quality-of-life and health economics considerations. The challenge facing nanotechnology and engineering is to deliver cost-effective, minimally invasive treatments with an improved efficacy, fewer side effects and enhanced quality-of-life in older patients. The approach of combining imaging with targeted drug delivery (theragnostics) is expected to become increasingly common. This is because the development and implementation of "stratified medicine" requires identification of treatments effective for particular groups of patients, with co-development of diagnostics to ensure the right patient gets the right treatment at the right time.
Drug delivery to tumour cells is a fundamental requirement for the effective treatment of cancer. Even if compounds interact strongly with a biochemical target in vitro, their failure to reach tumours in vivo in sufficient concentrations to selectively kill tumour cells compromises clinical use. There are numerous drugs which have excellent potential if they could reach their desired target site. Indeed a whole class of potential drugs exists that are hydrophobic in nature (meaning they don't dissolve easily in water) making them difficult to deliver via the blood stream. Given the declining productivity of drug development worldwide it is clear that new methods of delivering hydrophobic drugs will be of great importance and value.
The research proposed here is aimed at developing an advanced drug delivery system that is expected to possess several advantages over conventional treatments. Ideally, its properties of being both targeted and triggered will improve drug potency, control drug release to give a sustained therapeutic effect, provide greater safety, reduce the total drug dose required and decrease toxic side effects. Clearly such drug delivery systems would be equally applicable in a variety of disease areas as well as cancer.
Our system will consist of a delivery vehicle that will pass through the body's vasculature until it reaches its target site - a cancer cell. The vehicles will carry a payload of hydrophobic drugs (or other therapeutic agent). Attachment of the vehicles to the tumour will be monitored by enhanced ultrasound techniques (as currently used clinically in expert centres). Once attached to the cancer cells, a special ultrasound pulse will trigger the release of the drugs to provide a high local dosage. The vehicles we will construct consist of tiny bubbles that are too small to see by eye, ~1 micron in diameter. These "microbubbles" will carry a cargo of hydrophobic drugs packaged in even smaller oil droplets (~200 nm diameter). There are several potential designs of delivery vehicles, which we will construct and test. Once the optimal delivery vehicle is identified we will evaluate whether these can be used to improve the delivery of numerous hydrophobic drugs, which cannot currently be effectively formulated for use as treatments. With our collaborators we are investigating a number of such drugs, which promise to be effective for the treatment of CRC and its metastases and which will be developed with MB delivery vehicles during this project.
Occurrence of colorectal cancer is strongly related to age, with 83% of cases arising in people older than 60 years. It is anticipated that as our elderly population increases, CRC will increase in prevalence (National Institute for Clinical Excellence, www.nice.org.uk). This raises important questions relating to treatment in elderly patients balanced with quality-of-life and health economics considerations. The challenge facing nanotechnology and engineering is to deliver cost-effective, minimally invasive treatments with an improved efficacy, fewer side effects and enhanced quality-of-life in older patients. The approach of combining imaging with targeted drug delivery (theragnostics) is expected to become increasingly common. This is because the development and implementation of "stratified medicine" requires identification of treatments effective for particular groups of patients, with co-development of diagnostics to ensure the right patient gets the right treatment at the right time.
Drug delivery to tumour cells is a fundamental requirement for the effective treatment of cancer. Even if compounds interact strongly with a biochemical target in vitro, their failure to reach tumours in vivo in sufficient concentrations to selectively kill tumour cells compromises clinical use. There are numerous drugs which have excellent potential if they could reach their desired target site. Indeed a whole class of potential drugs exists that are hydrophobic in nature (meaning they don't dissolve easily in water) making them difficult to deliver via the blood stream. Given the declining productivity of drug development worldwide it is clear that new methods of delivering hydrophobic drugs will be of great importance and value.
The research proposed here is aimed at developing an advanced drug delivery system that is expected to possess several advantages over conventional treatments. Ideally, its properties of being both targeted and triggered will improve drug potency, control drug release to give a sustained therapeutic effect, provide greater safety, reduce the total drug dose required and decrease toxic side effects. Clearly such drug delivery systems would be equally applicable in a variety of disease areas as well as cancer.
Our system will consist of a delivery vehicle that will pass through the body's vasculature until it reaches its target site - a cancer cell. The vehicles will carry a payload of hydrophobic drugs (or other therapeutic agent). Attachment of the vehicles to the tumour will be monitored by enhanced ultrasound techniques (as currently used clinically in expert centres). Once attached to the cancer cells, a special ultrasound pulse will trigger the release of the drugs to provide a high local dosage. The vehicles we will construct consist of tiny bubbles that are too small to see by eye, ~1 micron in diameter. These "microbubbles" will carry a cargo of hydrophobic drugs packaged in even smaller oil droplets (~200 nm diameter). There are several potential designs of delivery vehicles, which we will construct and test. Once the optimal delivery vehicle is identified we will evaluate whether these can be used to improve the delivery of numerous hydrophobic drugs, which cannot currently be effectively formulated for use as treatments. With our collaborators we are investigating a number of such drugs, which promise to be effective for the treatment of CRC and its metastases and which will be developed with MB delivery vehicles during this project.
Planned Impact
The research proposed here would have a combination of short- and long-term beneficiaries and will offer long-term socio- and economic- benefit.
Academic Impact.
Most directly and immediately affected will be those engaged in translational research, especially involving the training of new PDRAs and PhDs, within the University of Leeds. For these it will serve to reinforce the benefits of following a multidisciplinary approach to targeting specific medical problems. This project will broaden the base of researchers engaged in therapeutic delivery and diagnostics through a combination of open internal meetings such as our regular Journal Club, our project-associated seminar programme and other specialized workshops in Colorectal Cancer (CRC), and surgical oncology. It will impact through our Annual Leeds International Microbubble Symposium.
Outside the University of Leeds researchers engaged in the development of drugs for cancer treatment will gain access to a simple route for formulation of hydrophobic drugs for targeted, triggered, delivery. Through a mutually beneficial collaboration with YICT and UCL we will have access to new drugs with excellent prospects for application in CRC. They will gain alternative delivery routes to overcome their existing pharmacokinetic problems. A wide range of researchers engaged in MB research (not just for medical application) will have a platform for the simple formulation of microbubbles with complex architectures. Our long term aim is to develop an instrument for the facile and low-cost production of microbubbles (MBs) with improved control over MB size and surface coating and to commercialize this in collaboration with our partners. In addition, researchers engaged in the use of fluorescent probes will benefit from the development of cadmium-free quantum dots. Whilst Qdots have been demonstrated to be excellent probes in biology, their progress in the clinic has been hindered by their potential toxicity. The development of Cd-free Qdots will benefit researchers working in not only biological applications, but also those working on solar cells.
Socio-Economic Impact.
Approximately 40,000 cases of CRC are diagnosed each year, and there are ~16,000 deaths in England and Wales per annum. The prognosis, if diagnosed with locally progressive disease is poor. Further, this is an illness most prevalent in the over 60s and is thus of increasing concern, both in terms of quality of life as well as economically, as life expectancy increases. The development of more effective modes of therapeutic delivery, thereby allowing reduced systemic exposure to potent drugs and concomitantly reduced cost will therefore have significant long term implications for the NHS directly and indirectly for tax-payers.
New, improved modes of delivery will obviously be of interest to major Pharma and charitable organisations engaged in improving the treatment of diseases. At this early stage we have made contact with a number of large charitable organisations and relevant pharmaceutical companies and have letters of support as part of our "Engineering Therapeutic Microbubbles" Programme from Astra Zeneca, Roche, CRUK and Arthritis Research UK. In the shorter term the Nottingham-based SME "Pharminox" who make and hold the patents for GW610, would potentially accelerate the process of registration of this drug if improved efficacy were demonstrated. Further, Epigem plc, Redcar, will benefit from the commercialization of relevant MB instruments and subsequent sales of microfluidic chips.
The ultimate beneficiaries would be the general public as primary recipients of, the technology to be developed and clinicians involved in its delivery. They would benefit from the development of more personalised plans of care, with improved efficacy of treatments, with reduced side effects and overall improvement in the quality of life, and life expectancy.
Academic Impact.
Most directly and immediately affected will be those engaged in translational research, especially involving the training of new PDRAs and PhDs, within the University of Leeds. For these it will serve to reinforce the benefits of following a multidisciplinary approach to targeting specific medical problems. This project will broaden the base of researchers engaged in therapeutic delivery and diagnostics through a combination of open internal meetings such as our regular Journal Club, our project-associated seminar programme and other specialized workshops in Colorectal Cancer (CRC), and surgical oncology. It will impact through our Annual Leeds International Microbubble Symposium.
Outside the University of Leeds researchers engaged in the development of drugs for cancer treatment will gain access to a simple route for formulation of hydrophobic drugs for targeted, triggered, delivery. Through a mutually beneficial collaboration with YICT and UCL we will have access to new drugs with excellent prospects for application in CRC. They will gain alternative delivery routes to overcome their existing pharmacokinetic problems. A wide range of researchers engaged in MB research (not just for medical application) will have a platform for the simple formulation of microbubbles with complex architectures. Our long term aim is to develop an instrument for the facile and low-cost production of microbubbles (MBs) with improved control over MB size and surface coating and to commercialize this in collaboration with our partners. In addition, researchers engaged in the use of fluorescent probes will benefit from the development of cadmium-free quantum dots. Whilst Qdots have been demonstrated to be excellent probes in biology, their progress in the clinic has been hindered by their potential toxicity. The development of Cd-free Qdots will benefit researchers working in not only biological applications, but also those working on solar cells.
Socio-Economic Impact.
Approximately 40,000 cases of CRC are diagnosed each year, and there are ~16,000 deaths in England and Wales per annum. The prognosis, if diagnosed with locally progressive disease is poor. Further, this is an illness most prevalent in the over 60s and is thus of increasing concern, both in terms of quality of life as well as economically, as life expectancy increases. The development of more effective modes of therapeutic delivery, thereby allowing reduced systemic exposure to potent drugs and concomitantly reduced cost will therefore have significant long term implications for the NHS directly and indirectly for tax-payers.
New, improved modes of delivery will obviously be of interest to major Pharma and charitable organisations engaged in improving the treatment of diseases. At this early stage we have made contact with a number of large charitable organisations and relevant pharmaceutical companies and have letters of support as part of our "Engineering Therapeutic Microbubbles" Programme from Astra Zeneca, Roche, CRUK and Arthritis Research UK. In the shorter term the Nottingham-based SME "Pharminox" who make and hold the patents for GW610, would potentially accelerate the process of registration of this drug if improved efficacy were demonstrated. Further, Epigem plc, Redcar, will benefit from the commercialization of relevant MB instruments and subsequent sales of microfluidic chips.
The ultimate beneficiaries would be the general public as primary recipients of, the technology to be developed and clinicians involved in its delivery. They would benefit from the development of more personalised plans of care, with improved efficacy of treatments, with reduced side effects and overall improvement in the quality of life, and life expectancy.
Publications
Phurimsak C
(2014)
On-chip determination of C-reactive protein using magnetic particles in continuous flow.
in Analytical chemistry
Taylor RW
(2014)
Watching individual molecules flex within lipid membranes using SERS.
in Scientific reports
Sutton KM
(2014)
Detection of somatic mutations in tumors using unaligned clonal sequencing data.
in Laboratory investigation; a journal of technical methods and pathology
Heath G
(2014)
Self-assembly of actin scaffolds on lipid microbubbles
in Soft Matter
Abou-Saleh RH
(2014)
Poly(ethylene glycol) lipid-shelled microbubbles: abundance, stability, and mechanical properties.
in Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids
Pukenas L
(2015)
Bead-like structures and self-assembled monolayers from 2,6-dipyrazolylpyridines and their iron( ii ) complexes
in Journal of Materials Chemistry C
Blakeston AC
(2015)
New poly(amino acid methacrylate) brush supports the formation of well-defined lipid membranes.
in Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids
Cheng N
(2015)
Facile Formation of Highly Mobile Supported Lipid Bilayers on Surface-Quaternized pH-Responsive Polymer Brushes
in Macromolecules
Tarn M
(2015)
Diamagnetic repulsion of particles for multilaminar flow assays
in RSC Advances
Roth J
(2015)
Optimization of Brownian ratchets for the manipulation of charged components within supported lipid bilayers
in Applied Physics Letters
Title | Bubble Lady |
Description | An animation to demonstrate the process of how a microbubble travels through the body and targets the tumour. To help explain this in layman terms so it can be used in outreach and public engagement. |
Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
Year Produced | 2015 |
Impact | Widening knowledge |
Description | 1. LOND based delivery shows enhanced uptake of drugs that are difficult to deliver- three papers currently in preparation/ submitted 2. Using micro bubbles with our delivery vehicles leads to enhance cancer treatment Many drugs considered "hydrophobic" are not actually that hydrophobic so we demonstrated that out approach works across a wide variety of delivery vehicles. 3. Nanobubbles /Nanodroplets useful as phase change agents offer better stability, better penetration into vasculature - should be explored further for targetted, triggered release systems. |
Exploitation Route | enhanced therapeutic delivery of difficult to deliver drugs - we have entered a NELSA course and had discussions with AstraZeneca, Roche and Merck about potential drugs that these might be useful for |
Sectors | Healthcare |
Description | 1. the new oil delivery systems is being used by other researchers in Leeds to deliver to breast and other cancers. Publications are still to be expected from this work 2. Microfluidics micro bubble platform has been advanced and though not fully commercialised yet - the first two instruments orders have been placed by Stanford Faculty of Medicine and Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam. Further interest expressed from Johns Hopkins and Harvard Medical schools. 3. Present by Merck at Innospire 2016 in Darmstadt and Boston - under consideration for commercialisation - positioned just outside those selected to take forward (in Boston) - unfortunately this came 3rd the first two (from Germany/ USA)) were funded. 4. Worked with Medicines Drug Discovery Catapult (MDC) to determine best route to take technology forward- this formed the basis for a subsequent EPSRC HIPs projects with MDC as a partner (and contributing >£600k to the project). 5. Patents successfully granted in US / Europe and Japan |
First Year Of Impact | 2016 |
Sector | Education,Healthcare |
Impact Types | Societal |
Description | Epigem |
Organisation | Epigem |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | Epigem plc supplied funding and joined the initial research programme |
Collaborator Contribution | Funding, Expertise |
Impact | Epigem are now a supplier rather than partner but they benefit from increased user base |
Start Year | 2007 |
Description | 5th Chemical nano-science symposium |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | ?The 5th Chemical Nanoscience Symposium in Newcastle. Series of invited speakers, poster session and discussions. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
URL | http://conferences.ncl.ac.uk/chemnanosymposium5/cnsn-5-keyinformation/ |
Description | Annual Microbubble Symposium 2011 - 2016 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Microbubble Symposium is an annual conference led by the Leeds Microbubble Consortium. There is a mixture of research talks, keynote speakers and posters relating to the on-going research around microbubbles and drug delivery. Collaborative opportunities and developments. There were roughly 80 people at the meeting in 2015 and we are currently in the process of arranging one for 2016. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011,2012,2013,2014,2015,2016 |
URL | http://www.microbubbles.leeds.ac.uk/ |
Description | Facebook Interview |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | · Our Facebook promotion reached 195,949 people, with a total of 207,498 impressions and 16,300 "results" - which is people engaging with the post in some way (click throughs, likes, shares, video views etc) · Over 10,000 views of the Facebook live interview with Steve and Sally, and many great comments saying people will donate. The video reached over 36,000 people |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | First Translational US meeting in Cardiff |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Attended conference and also was a Chair and speaker in December 2015 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | High velocity fluidics for the production of nanobubbles for medical applications |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Talk at the Leeds organised Microbubble Symposium, talk included work done on the microfluidics that underpins the microbubble generation at Leeds |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | Invited Seminar Sheffield University |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Dr Peyman gave an invited seminar talk at the School of Physics, Sheffield University |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Invited Seminar talk - Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Dr Peyman was invited to give a talk on her research at Leeds at Heriot-Watt University in which she included work on therapeutic microbubbles |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Invited Talk - BMUS (British Medical Ultrasound Society) Meeting, York Dec 2016 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Invited talk at BMUS meeting - collaboration with Edinburgh University - through Thunddar Network |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Invited Talk - Vienna |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Invited talk to drug delivery focussed group meeting - AIST Vienna (October 2016) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Invited talk: Microfluidic production of micro- and nano- bubbles for medical applications. Microfluidics focus group, Diamond Light Source, Oxford. |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Invited talk to the microfluidics focus group at Diamond Light Source that prompted discussions on the integration of beams with microfluidics. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Leeds Festival of Science |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Assistance at Leeds Festival of Science, PhD student helping out at Woodkirk Academy |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Medicine, Not Just for Medics |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Students are introduced to the concept of microbubbles in medicine, specifically as drug delivery vehicles. Students explore a number of the currently available architectural properties, tasked with the aim of combatting a specified disease; Alzheimer's, cancer, coronary heart disease or diabetes. As the students choose which architectural material to add to their bubble, challenged with the disease's needs against the cost of the materials, they build a physical representation of their bubble. By mixing a mental challenge with a physically and visually active task this session brings interest and excitement to learning about science |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014,2015 |
URL | http://www.stem.leeds.ac.uk/events/medicine-not-just-medics/ |
Description | Microbubbles Workshop - Medicine, Not Just About Medics, December 2019 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | 90 students engaged with workshop as part of annual widening participation event, feedback: "the Microbubbles session was without doubt the big hit of the event - it scored really well with students and teachers alike and they enjoyed how fun, engaging and eye opening it was for some too! Comments from students also suggest that the day as a whole was very eye-opening for them, learned more about the breadth of subjects in the area and also found the day very engaging. Following the event a few more students indicated that they definitely now wanted to come to university." |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019,2020 |
URL | https://www.stem.leeds.ac.uk/events/mnjam-2/ |
Description | Microbubbles Workshop - Physics Summer School, July 2019 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Engaged with 30 pupils using Microbubbles outreach workshop as part of widening participation Physics Summer School |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Microbubbles Workshop for Schools Outreach |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | From it's inception is 2014, the one-hour Microbubbles outreach activity has been delivered by postgraduate students to young people in key stage 4 (Years 10 and 11) with the aim of showing that medicine is a multi-disciplinary made up of people from all areas of sciences. The one-hour workshops gets pupils to design their own versions of drug delivery microbubbles to treat cancer and other serious diseases. From December 2014 to February 2019, the session has been delivered 28 times to over 800 key stage 4 students from close to 50 school groups. Specific numbers and feedback from participants and teachers have been included below. 2014 - 90 students from 6 school groups across 3 workshops 2015 - 165 students from 4 school groups across 5 workshops 2016 - 250 students from 20 school groups across 8 workshops 2017 - 195 students from 10 school groups across 6 workshops 2018 - 150 students from 8 school groups across 5 workshops 2019 - 15 students from 1 school group across 1 workshop "Creating your own microbubble was exciting - as well I have learnt how to overcome certain diseases, I enjoyed the activity as I never knew that this was a treatment option before." "... [L]earning new aspects of physics was interesting, good to see how they work and what they are used for, it was a new form of treatment that I didn't know before." "...I enjoyed this session the most because it was very interesting to learn about the different kinds of things that the microbubbles are composed of and what diseases they can treat, it was fun and relaxed - explained well with a good activity, brilliant teacher." |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014,2015,2016,2017,2018,2019 |
URL | https://www.stem.leeds.ac.uk/physics/workshops/ |
Description | Microfluidic production of micro- and nano- bubbles for medical applications |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | A RSC organised workshop on ultra-fine bubbles. Current standards policy makers were present and the workshop also included debates on the current science of nanobubbles. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Microfluidics - a versatile platform for bubble generation and functionalisation |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Invited talk at Izon research symposium 2014 in which I spoke about the work on microbubbles for drug delivery, in particular how they are generated in microfludics. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
Description | Microfluidics: A versatile tool for biomedical research |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Invited talk to the 30th Micromechanics and Microdevices European workshop, Oxford University. I gave a talk on the use of microfluidics for a wide range of biomedical applications that I have performed in my research. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Microscience and Microscopy congress |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | mmc2015: all about microscopy mmc2015, the Microscience Microscopy Congress, has now closed its doors! Over 1300 people flocked to Manchester to see the latest and greatest in microscopy through both the conference and the exhibition. Photos from the Congress are now available to view, so find out what we got up to or see if you can spot yourself! Thank you to all of our visitors, exhibitors, sponsors and volunteers for helping to make mmc2015 a great success! Postdoc from the group gave an oral presentation - Oral: "Effect of glycerol on physical and nano-mechanical properties of phospholipid coated microbubbles" |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
URL | http://www.mmc2015.org.uk/ |
Description | Out reach event at microTAS Dublin 2017 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | MicroTAS is the premier International conference for microfluidics - as part of the week-long conference it organises an outreach event to engage those outside the academic community. The 2017 meeting was held in Dublin and the Leeds microbubble team organised the outreach event. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | http://www.microtas2016.org/program/outreach/ |
Description | Physics Taster session talk 2018 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Dr Peyman gave a talk on bubbles for fighting cancer as part of a physics taster day for school students currently choosing University places. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Pint of Science public talk: Bottoms up to Bubbles: The little big bangs destroying cancer |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Dr Peyman was asked to give a talk on the bubble research as part of the nationwide Pint of Science series of talks |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Public talk - Science on the microscale: bubble bombs for fighting cancer |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Dr Peyman was invited to give a talk to the Huddersfield Women's Institute on the bubble research at Leeds |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Public talk - Therapeutic Microbubbles |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Dr Peyman was invited to give a talk as part of a an afternoon tea raising money for Yorkshire Cancer Research. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Reach 4 Excellence Half Term Event |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Talk given to Schools by PhD Student, Adam Churchman |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | SET For Britain |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Victoria Mico gave a poster presentation at SET for Britain in Houses of Parliament. March 2016. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | School visit |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Dr Louise Coletta visited a school as part of a research/outreach visit. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Science on the microscale: bubble bombs for fighting cancer' |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Dr Peyman to give a talk at girls school in Manchester on Science on the microscale: bubble bombs for fighting cancer' |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Seminar Exeter |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Seminar - Health Sciences |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Seminar York |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Seminar Biological Physics Meeting for Healthcare |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Therapeutic micro bubbles |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Therapeutic micro bubbles, International (even though only in Manchester) 3-5th March 2016, Steve Evans |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | U3A Grantham |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | U3A talk and discussion - Grantham March 2016 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | UK India meeting |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | Our UK-India seminar is designed to generate new international collaborations to explore responsive surface molecular systems. This will be achieved by enabling networking between those working on molecular photochemical and nanoparticle systems. The Seminar will have evening, and daytime networking sessions as well as focus group discussions with the aim to establish well-defined meaningful international research collaborations |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
URL | http://www.ukindia.leeds.ac.uk/ |
Description | Youtube video |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | YouTube videos - two different versions of an interview with Steve Evans, and one animation which was put together - have so far achieved 960 views in total. What's more impressive is that the average watch time for these shows that most people are staying with them, rather than clicking away. The Animation is 48 seconds long and the average view is 37 seconds; the Steve Evans interview is 2.13 long and the average view is 1:30. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | • Astbury Research Retreat 2015 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | • Astbury Research Retreat 2015 Talk given at the Astbury Research Retreat This meeting is organised annually by the Astbury Centre at the University of Leeds, and brings together biologists, chemists and physicists. The talk was titled "Hybrid Microbubble-Nanodroplet architectures for enhanced hydrophobic drug delivery", which was presented by Victoria Mico. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
URL | http://victoriamico.com/2015/09/21/talk-given-at-the-astbury-research-retreat/ |