Sustainable High-Throughput Synthesis for Next-Generation Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

A highly competitive PhD studentship focusing on improving the sustainability of pharmaceutical production. The project involves developing and applying batch high-throughput experimentation (HTE) methods and synthetic chemistry workflows to support the transition from batch to continuous flow processes. This PhD project will work alongside a £10M+ project funded by Innovate UK and will involve collaboration with industry partners including AstraZeneca, Labman and Britest. The research will focus on designing and executing high-throughput synthetic experiments to generate datasets for machine learning-driven optimisation, developing robust synthetic routes for pharmaceutically relevant compounds, collaborating with a postdoctoral researcher to integrate HTE data into autonomous flow reactor platforms, and embedding sustainability metrics into synthetic route selection and optimisation. The studentship provides full academic fees together with a tax-free maintenance grant at the standard UKRI rate of £20,780 per year for 3.5 years, with access to state-of-the-art facilities in the Institute of Process Research and Development and opportunities to collaborate with leading industrial partners.