Prof. Katherine Elvira

Drug Discovery

Artificial membranes as in vitro models for drug transport in the human body

It is hard to predict the in vivo behaviour of a drug candidate early in the development process, yet this causes too many drugs to fail in clinical trials. The Elvira Lab uses microfluidic platforms to design and build droplet-based systems to create lipid bilayers. The modularity of these systems allows each component to be customised to provide highly biomimetic environments.

Artificial Cells and Tissues

Building artificial cells and tissues from the bottom up

Cells are complex entities. Using microfluidic technologies the Elvira Lab builds artificial cells and tissues from the bottom up. In other words, we build them from their fundamental components, such as lipids and proteins. This means that we can build designer artificial cells and tissues to answer fundamental biological questions.

Microfluidic Technologies

Fundamental microfluidic research and engineering challenges

The Elvira Lab aims to develop robust and innovative microfluidic platforms, so we study the fundamental processes and components of microfluidic systems. We are interested in surfactant development and kinetics, surface chemistry, droplet behaviour, new materials and fabrication processes, simulation and computational structure optimisation.

Commercialisation

Technology transfer from the laboratory to the real world

So that our microfluidic platforms have the potential to be used outside of academic laboratories, it is important to develop and foster close collaborations with industry and end-users, such as pharma. The Elvira Lab is always seeking new contacts and relationships, ranging from consulting to grant applications and projects, both long and short term. Get in touch.