As part of the Visiting Professors Programme (IDUB), Malinda Salim, PhD (Monash University) will deliver an open lecture entitled ‘Utilising milk and milk-based systems as excipients for drug delivery.’
Bio
Malinda Salim, PhD (Drug Delivery Disposition and Dynamics, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University (Parkville Campus), 381 Royal Parade, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia)
Originally from Indonesia, Malinda graduated from the School of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield. She is now a research fellow in Professor Ben J. Boyd’s group at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Her broad interests are in global health and nutrition for paediatrics, focusing on the development and understanding of milk and milk-based formulations for oral delivery of poorly water-soluble drugs (which has been funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation) and recently has expanded to the nutritional aspects of these milk-based systems. Malinda has also been involved in organising international meetings and was assistant editor for the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science in Elsevier.
About the lecture
This lecture collects the current understanding around opportunities in using milk-based formulations as excipients for drug delivery. Milk is well recognised as an amazing delivery system for essential lipids, poorly soluble nutrients, sugars, amino acids and delivery of critical biological molecules to sustain the infant and adult alike. It is also a safe and abundant resource with potential to act as a low-cost material for formulation of medicines, especially for paediatric patients and those in low economy settings. However, its use in low cost formulations has never developed beyond preclinical evaluation. Reasons for this are several-fold including variable composition and therefore regulatory challenges, as well as a lack of clear understanding around when milk or milk-related materials like infant formula could best be deployed by linking drug properties with excipient composition attributes, especially when taking digestion into account. It is apparent from the evolving understanding that while milk may be a bridge too far for translation as an excipient, infant formula is positioned to play a key role in the future because, as a powder-based excipient, it has the performance benefits of milk powder together with the controlled specifications during manufacture and versatility of application to function as a low cost lipid excipient to enable potential translation for the oral delivery of poorly water soluble drugs for key populations including paediatrics and low economy medicines.
