About the project
Help transform how medicines are monitored and delivered.
This project develops silicon photonic sensors that use mid-infrared light to measure drug levels instantly at the point of care. Working with NHS clinicians and experts at Southampton’s world-leading Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC), you’ll gain cutting-edge skills in photonics, fabrication, and healthcare innovation.
Motivation Therapeutic drug monitoring can benefit significantly from the availability of point-of-care devices in the clinic to measure the concentration of administered drugs with a narrow effective target concentration range. Out-of-range concentration can lead to ineffective treatment or toxicity.
For these drugs, rapid, effective and accurate tests of drug levels can result in patients achieving “therapeutic range” doses faster with less chance of periods of time with subtherapeutic or toxic levels. We have consulted NHS specialist clinicians who have suggested drugs that need to be monitored.
Solution In this project you will be working on the design and fabrication of silicon photonics circuits that operate in the mid-infrared wavelength region where the drugs have distinct absorption fingerprints. The main aim is to achieve detection of clinically relevant concentrations of drugs using inexpensive silicon chips that can be mass manufactured.
You will be working with a large research team based in the ORC and University Hospital in Southampton on technologies that will change the way healthcare is managed.
You will have access to one of the best academic cleanrooms in Europe and state of the art photonics laboratories in the largest photonics centre in the UK. You will collaborate with experts across various fields and gain experience in the design, fabrication and characterisation of photonic circuits. A comprehensive training will be available for improving your technical and soft skills.
The School of Optoelectronics (ORC) is committed to promoting equality, diversity inclusivity as demonstrated by our Athena SWAN award. We welcome all applicants regardless of their gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or age, and will give full consideration to applicants seeking flexible working patterns and those who have taken a career break. The University has a generous maternity policy, onsite childcare facilities, and offers a range of benefits to help ensure employees’ well-being and work-life balance. The University of Southampton is committed to sustainability and has been awarded the Platinum EcoAward.
