Lotte Ejskjær, is currently researching the addition of precipitation inhibitors in lipid-based formulations to increase the supersaturated phase after dispersion and digestion in biorelevant media. As part of her individual project within InPharma, she spent the first 18 months at University College Cork in Ireland with two shorter secondments at Pion inc. in the UK before transferring to Jonson and Johnson innovative medicine (previously Janssen Pharmaceutica NV) in Beerse, Belgium for the remaining 18 months of her PhD. InPharma is a European Industrial Doctorate (EID) project that brings together academic institutions an industry partners to provide the Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) interdisciplinary training and research opportunities by spending at least half their time in industry. As part of our InPharma on-the-job series, we have organised short interviews with our ESRs to better understand first-hand what a working within an industry-focused doctoral training program looks like.
Can you provide an overview of your current research project?
In the academic part of my PhD project, I developed an in-line real-time in vitro lipolysis method used to investigate the impact of digestion of lipid-based formulation on the drug concentration. This method showed similar digestion as the traditional method, however, has the advantage of using in-line drug detection and are higher throughout, which makes the experiments less laborious and it is possible to generate more data in one experiment. This method was then used to screen a bigger data set of poorly water-soluble drugs in lipid-based formulation upon dispersion and digestion. This data set was used to develop a predictive model for early development, where based on the drug solubility in FaSSIF the performance in a lipid-based formulation can be predicted.
In the industrial part of the PhD project the method was further developed by including a titrator to maintain the pH stable throughout the digestion process. Furthermore, the inclusion of polymeric precipitation inhibitors in type IIIA and IV lipid-based formulations was assessed.
What does a typical day in your research project look like?
A typical day highly depends on which stage in a project I am in. Typically a project starts with an hypothesis, literature search on the subject, design of experiments, conducting trial experiments and if it looks promising then collection of a full data set, data analysis, and finally wrapping up the project with writing a report or manuscript for publication. In the initial phases a typical day will most be in front of the laptop, when collecting data most of the time is spent in the laboratory, and in the final phase it is back to the laptop for the data analysis and writing. However, I never work on a single project at the time, therefore my days are often a mix of laboratory work on one project and work on the laptop on different project(s). Therefore, time management a skill you learn quickly.
It is also a mandatory part of a PhD to share the research results in form of participating in conferences, so in the weeks up to a conference, timeslots are allocated to preparing poster or presentation, and during a conference the time is spent networking with other researchers in the field, going to interesting lectures/talks within my research field or just interest area, and follow poster presentations.
What benefits do you see of spending half of your doctorate in the non-academic sector?
It is well known that there is a gap between the research conducted in academia and the research conducted in industry. I have learned during my PhD project that the mindset of the researchers is also quite different. It has been very giving to be a part of both, especially, to get an insight into the industrial research as you are only told about this at university. Furthermore, a benefit is that I feel better prepared for taking a decision for the future and my network is significantly increased.
How did you find your training within then industry-focused doctoral training program?
As ESRs we had two annual in-person training sessions, one in autumn with only ESRs and one in the early summer with ESRs, industrial and academic supervisors. These trainings have been very interesting to give a good insight in the industrial research, furthermore, the trainings with only ESRs were held in industry, and we got a tour of the campus. It has also had a positive influence on us as a group of ESRs, which I find very important. At universities and in industry we meet fellow PhD students, however, as our project included a shift in our primary work environment and a cross country move it has been really giving to have fellow PhD students doing the same.
The training in the summer also included that we as ESRa needed to do a presentation on our research, which was very helpful in practicing presenting in front of an expert audience and gave us the possibility to be challenged on our research.
What are your plans for the remainder of your studies within InPharma and beyond?
For the remaining time within InPharma the plan is to finish the currently projects, and hopefully share my results in the form of publication(s). And ending with a successful thesis and PhD viva.
For my further work, I hope to continue within research. As a start, I got the opportunity to stay in the group at Johnson and Johnson Innovative Medicines where I had my industrial placement.