Vicky Barmpatsalou

• Medarbetarportalen vid Uppsala universitet (kräver inloggning)

I’m a pharmacist by training, holding a BSc in Pharmacy from the University of Athens. During my BSc studies, I did a lab internship focusing on the gastrointestinal transfer at the Drug Delivery and Disposition Lab at KULeuven, Belgium. I continued my studies to obtain a MSc in Industrial Pharmaceutics from the University of Athens and during that time I did a placement in Astellas Pharma, in the Netherlands, where I was involved in the validation of a novel in vitro gastrointestinal transfer set up. Currently I am a PhD student within the Drug Delivery Group in Uppsala University, under the main supervision of Christel Bergström and co supervised by Eva Karlsson (AstraZeneca) and Betty Pedersen (Ferring).

My PhD project revolves around drug absorption in the colon, and more specifically, we are focusing on the mucus, a viscoelastic hydrogel that is found in the luminal side of the epithelium of the gastrointestinal tract. The end goal is to develop an in vitro model that will be mimicking the porcine colonic mucus. Such a model will enable quick and less variable screening of drug candidates that are targeting the colon as controlled release formulations and will eventually contribute to the reduction of animal usage in the drug development process. In this manner, we are taking a step forward in the establishment of more physiologically relevant in vitro models for the assessment of advanced oral dosage forms.